False Optimism
by Great Gomerel
Summary: Post 3x18. Addison and Alex grapple with professional aspirations and personal yearnings. AddisonAlex. COMPLETED series. [Ch. 13. Alex completes his training. Our pair moves forward. Final chapter.]
1. A Quarter of an Inch

Not mine. K+/PG. Post-3x18. Addison and Alex grapple with professional aspirations and personal yearnings. Now ongoing. Mostly Addison/Alex with references to Addison/Mark and Addison/Derek.

Chapter One. "A Quarter of an Inch." Alex seeks professional reassurance from his former mentor; Addison reflects on a trying day.

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"I was just trying to look out for her."

Addison indulged in a brief, barely-audible sigh before peering up from her chart at an edgy and defensively-posed Dr. Karev. She'd perched on a gurney in a quiet hallway of the psych floor in precisely the hopes of avoiding people she knew. People like him. It had been a long, dull day, filled with paperwork, uncooperative patients, and personal tension. To make matters even better, she'd been assisted on the first two in sulky silence by her intern, Yang, whom the virulent Seattle Grace rumor mill credited with having had a day even worse than her own. Now _there _was a match she wouldn't have predicted. She could understand the thing with Burke, because, well, in addition to his surgical prowess, Preston was a rather fine specimen of a man. He could be quite charming at times. Derek, she knew, had found him stand-offish at first, but she had always found his manner towards herself to be pleasant and warm. But Yang and Colin Marlow? That would be like her and _Richard_ engaging in….

_Ugh_. Addison swiftly slammed the door on that nauseating vision. Not that Richard was ugly, by any means--but the man _had _been a surrogate father to her for nearly twelve years. (Which made today's dressing-down from him sting, more than a little.) In any event, she couldn't comprehend the attraction, and she'd done her best that day to keep Yang running around, her churlish energy occupied at a safe distance from Addison's own set of irritating entanglements. Today, really, there was just one entanglement. Mark. Whose breezy self-assurance in what she considered to be grave matters of the heart at once aggravated and entranced her. And whose blatant disregard for her professional opinion infuriated her, period.

With Derek, no matter the state of their personal relations, she was always assured of his professional respect. Whether it was the product of love or the proprietor's pride in the prowess of a favored race horse, he'd always understood that she was damned good at her job. To be sure, her tendency to attach herself to patients infuriated him at times, but it was only, she knew, because he sensed his weakness for that side of her. There wasn't much of the damsel-in-distress about Addison Montgomery, but cooing over a four-inch fighter in the NICU, she acquired an air of incipient heartbreak that drew Derek to her like a fly to honey. His exorbitant ego had always pegged him as the only man capable of assuaging her grief. She was ashamed to admit now, in the mordant waste land of their "fairytale" marriage, that he had once been right.

Just as she was ashamed, today, of turning to him in the argument with Mark. Because Mark was right—he was no longer her husband, it wasn't his patient, and she shouldn't have brought him into it. But the small, fierce corner of her psyche, the one that had sent her leaping out of her seat to follow him at his first civil, post-divorce word, the one that had made soap necessary in the removal of her rings—that part had seen a chance for "Addison and Derek" to reunite for a second, in however vitiated a form, and seized it. Addison despised that side of herself, and such moments of indulgence were usually succeeded by a vicious renouncement of all things "Derek."

It was just such a moment that had landed her in her present predicament.

"I was just trying to look out for her. Jane Doe, you know. I didn't realize," muttered the intern before her, "I just… she and the baby, they're going to be okay, right?" Addison forced her facial muscles to relax, to un-knit the fold between her brows. The teaching instinct was insuppressible with her. Right now, looking at the half-defiant, half-fearful face of this _boy_ (for he was still a boy, really), she was not the aging reject of a youthful Lothario. She was his mentor. It was as such that she responded.

"It was not your responsibility to realize anything. It was _my _responsibility and Dr. Sloan's to advise the patient of the best course of action." She wondered if he was still smarting from having been yelled at, earlier. Her tone had been a little harsh, perhaps, but the order had been reasonable, and he'd certainly had worse from her in their time together. She wouldn't apologize.

"It's just that, well, she asked me—the patient, I mean—she asked if, you know, if the baby would be okay. And I said we'd be watching the fetus closely. But it was only because I knew that you would fix it, if anything bad happened, and I thought her eyesight was—"

"Karev," she cut him off before he could register the compliment he'd let slip and feel embarrassed by it. "The baby is fine. The patient is fine. Mark Sloan has no respect for my specialty, and that's a problem, but it's his problem to deal with, not yours." _And there it was_. He was afraid, poor kid, of appearing to have picked sides. It was unlike him, this placating tone, and here again she'd failed in his professional guidance. Because he shouldn't have had to transfer the sense of being personally trapped—in the middle of the maelstrom that was her relationship with Mark, which was itself an escape from Derek, and from which she had attempted to escape in turn, by kissing Karev that night at Joe's—into a sense of professional failure. That was unfair. Everything about this situation—for her, Mark, and Karev—was unfair. Only Derek waltzed away with sanguine prospects and an unshaken faith in the healing power of True Love. But she had begun, of late, to suspect that his optimism was grounded in a shallowness of feeling. He grieved, for sure, but his grief was the self-congratulatory wallowing of Romantic-era poets and pre-pubescent boy-bands. No recent divorcé who really _felt_ could be that happy all of the time.

But disgust with Derek and the natural desire to fling some self-satisfaction back at him were not good enough justifications for her pact with Mark. Why had she let it happen? She might have been faithful to him, physically, in their two brief months together, but she'd _always_ known that he felt more for her than she did for him. It was a sad fate, to be a compulsive manwhore. He was cursed with the capacity for true feeling without the ability to sustain its outward appearance. He had twenty years of habit with which to grapple, and no one to support the quest by believing he could make it. Who was she to deplore his lack of respect for her, professionally? She didn't respect him _personally_, and that was far worse. She'd even held him up, in her mind and out loud, as an example of what _not _to become, the endpoint to avoid. She'd told Karev she wanted to protect him from Mark's influence.

Ah, Karev. The relief of knowing she didn't blame him—that he still had her respect, even affection?—was visible in the lines of his shoulders. She had made him feel better. Her approval meant that much. This much, at least, she could still do. Now he replied.

"He shouldn't be taking it out on you at work." Suddenly he was _right there_, in her personal space, all scrubs and flesh and sympathy hovering on the outskirts of her field of vision through her now-downcast eyes. _She'd have to remember to start wearing a camisole under this dress_. Not that Addison wasn't comfortable with a little cleavage at work, but at this moment, avoiding his eyes, it was all she could see and all she imagined he was seeing, too. Which would be fine, if this was before the Incident in the Supply Closet and if she hadn't been hiding for a week before _that_ like the guilty harlot she sometimes believed herself to be. Was this impotent preoccupation with sex a sign of things to come? In twenty years would she be wandering this psych ward with a walker, hobbling after every penis in sight, wailing: "Who's next? _I am lonely and empty inside…_"?

"Whatever it is," he continued, and she imagined she could feel the heat of his hand hovering near hers, "that he wants from you, if he's not getting it, it's his fault. He's an ass. And if you've finally figured that out, he has no right to take it out on you professionally." _Well_. There he was, the Karev of intentional vanilla lattes, the _Alex _she'd killed (_he'd _killed) in her mind that day in the supply closet, a fully mortifying ten minutes after he'd departed and left her knee-deep in the wreckage of her self-esteem. Here he was, _now_, long past her declarations to Mark about their incompatibility and after she'd managed to enmesh herself once more in the web of "Mark and Addison and Derek." Because Mark would _always _come with a helping of Derek, even in New York before, even _now_ with Derek blissfully emancipated from them, off in his "Meredith and Derek" world. _They_ could not move on. He was always with them.

But Karev was not connected to the triangle (quadrangle?) of despair. His ties to Mark were professional, and Addison was starting to hope that those, too, were more tenuous than he'd admitted. He might have failed his boards—Richard had let it slip during one of their dumped-spouse pity parties, in a moment when they were pretending they weren't actually that self-absorbed—but he'd applied himself, in the past, to cases in neonatal, and when he had the results had been phenomenal. Sure, he'd been diligent with dry-cleaning, but she hadn't seen that spark of _intellectual _fervor in his eyes once in the time since he'd left her for Mark.

_Left her for Mark. _As if he was their plaything and they were two large cats at play, passing him back and forth between their paws. The _boy _she'd condescended to put at ease was gone; in his place was the wrestler whose black tank top had sent a rush of blood to her head that was independent of her oxygen mask.

"Dr. Sloan and I," she managed to enunciate (_had he heard about their pact?_), "are coworkers, that's all." If it wasn't true it should be, and as soon as her breathing steadied and she could look people in the eye again, Addison would figure out how to make it so. "It was unprofessional of us both to air our differences in the hallway." There. _Turn it into a teaching moment, that's the ticket._

Feeling bolder, she lifted her eyes to meet his. A clear mistake. She caught the slight, quickly-suppressed smirk that responded, in his eyes, to the obvious awakened interest in hers. Chagrined, she rose to the challenge: stiffening her frame, narrowing her eyes, and leaning in close enough to smell his breath. "_Just _coworkers, Karev. Just like you and I."

He swallowed, and she watched with fascination as the tendons in his neck undulated around his Adam's apple. A faint growth of stubble lined the underside of his jaw, and her surgeon's fingers itched to touch it with a curiosity almost scientific. What would its texture be, and what would his sensations be along the roots of those hairs as her fingers shifted them with a caress? A faint flush was spreading just behind his ears, and the sudden awareness of _his_ arousal gave a fresh burst of intensity to her own. His gaze flickered to her lips, left slightly parted, and he seemed to gather his own resolve as he inched his mouth towards hers.

"Addison." The voice was sharp, low, and unmistakably petulant. At once she had all the personal space she could wish for, and more. Mark stood staring at her with a face of wounded virtue. Karev—that courage of mere moments ago now vanished into stale hospital air—had fled the scene.

"Mark." Her tone was impatient with a hint of involuntary guilt.

"A word, if you please." She held his gaze for a beat to emphasize her right of refusal, the necessity of making it a request. Then she followed him through the double doors to wherever he deemed fit.

It was only fair to leave a man the choice of a deathbed for his hopes.

End of Chapter One.

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A/N: the imagery with the walker & accompanying quote come courtesy of Kate Walsh's _Square Off _interview. I _wish_ I was that funny.


	2. Seattle Laundry

Not mine. K+/PG. Post-3x18. Addison and Alex grapple with professional aspirations and personal yearnings. Ongoing series. Mostly Addison/Alex with references to Addison/Mark and Addison/Derek.

Chapter Two. "Seattle Laundry." Addison and Mark share regrets. Alex and Addison trace boundaries. A shorter chapter; more substantial Alex/Addison interaction in the next.

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Addison found herself with Mark in the laundry room, in the basement of the hospital. It wasn't really a laundry room so much as the storage room for carts of dirty laundry. _How appropriate_, she thought, with just a twinge of bitterness, before remembering that she would shortly be the one of them experiencing the least pain.

The last time she'd been in a hospital laundry room had been in New York, nearly a year ago now. It was the morning after Derek's departure, and she'd dragged herself to work on an intermittent half-hour's sleep only to discover that she was entirely unfit to practice medicine. She'd rescheduled or reassigned her surgeries and had sought a hiding place, ending up in a room nearly identical to her current location. Three hours later, when she'd decimated her supply of Kleenex—reinforced that morning in deference to the demands of the day—she'd taken to wiping away snot with the least foul-looking of the sheets in the bin behind her.

And that was how Mark found her, half draped in the sweaty remains of an influenza patient's bedding with the corner plastered to her nose. She'd resisted his presence at first, however unconvincingly, but soon devolved into a companionable-in-misery silence. He, too, yearned for Derek. They'd stayed that way for more hours than Addison was willing to track. Somewhere in the middle of the afternoon, before the hair bleach and the breakdown in front of her mirror, they'd ended up having furious sex against a pillar by an especially nasty cart from the gastrointestinal disorders ward. If she closed her eyes right now, she could still smell the mix of sex and diarrhea which had floated in the air. She wondered if Mark expected this laundry visit to turn out the same way.

"So much for mocking Derek's appetite for interns." It was the expected caustic remark, the defensive wit of the injured playboy. What she wasn't prepared for was the ineffectiveness of its delivery—the sheer lack of pretense in its humorless tone. It was as though he'd read the finality of her thoughts, on the walk over, in the inexorably measured pace of her gait. Already she'd begun to reconsider her expectations of imperviousness.

"We put him in the middle of our fight. That wasn't fair to him. We're supposed to be his _mentors_, Mark." It was the first thing that came to mind, and she knew it was a feeble attempt to forestall the main point of their discussion, but her voice had come unbidden.

He laughed, a short bark from the pit of his stomach that carried as much amusement as the engravings on the Vietnam Memorial. "You're worried about teaching, Addison? Right here, right now, _that's _what's got you hot and bothered?" It was a dirty way to phrase it, but such language was Mark's core vocabulary—any other wording would have left her more concerned.

"We can't let our personal problems get in the way of our—" He sucked the rest of her sentence right off of her lips, a bruising kiss to match the less-than-tender feelings it conveyed. The slight sting gave her too-proud tear ducts the excuse they'd sought to prickle with unshed tears. "Mark," she gasped, when she'd extracted herself from his clinging arms and put some air between them, "oh, Mark."

The glint in her eyes kept him silent; he'd always been a cliché with women's tears. "I can't keep my part of the bargain." Now, then. There it was, suspended in the dampness between them. She waited one beat, then two, until she could no longer stand it.

"Well, say _something_, please," her voice popped like a scratched record on the second word. "You know I never meant to hurt you…." _It isn't fair to you_. It wasn't fair to her, either. She couldn't--shouldn't--string them both along when they knew she would never be able to give him what he deserved. Manwhore that he was, he _deserved_ someone who would love him back with equal abandon. The list of potential platitudes was endless.

"Save it for the Lifetime channel, Addie," he snapped, "I understood you the first time around." She pressed her lips together, both to hold in her voice and to stem the tide of melodramatic tears that had offered themselves on cue. "I'm tired," he murmured, softer now, "of fighting for _us _alone."

She lost the battle, then, with the little liquid traitors. He'd taken the words from her own lips. They were words she'd ached for months to scream at Derek, but she'd never found the nerve.

When he left her there alone, she reflected that the last room had had better company all around.

-----

Someone, somewhere high was laughing, Addison decided, when she strode out of the hospital lobby and bumped right into her personal intern. The flurry of apologies and uneasy laughter kept her occupied a while, but eventually her eye caught his cigarette and she started, just a little. She cocked her head at him, a silent question. He was young and a doctor and she wouldn't have thought he'd smoke.

"I don't," he muttered, still off-balance, "but I felt the need just now." He smelled of smoke and surgery. She watched him raise the stick of cancer to his mouth. There it hovered over pursed lips for some seconds, then descended. He had not inhaled. A bit of ash had fallen into the cleft on his chin, gray but glittery in the shade of night, and her fingers reached to brush it off, an unthinking gesture that she truncated when her hand was halfway raised, and drew back. He'd caught the small movement and his hand responded with a twitch that could mean anything—had he been about to stop her? Push her away? _Or had his fingers sought her own?_—and he lowered his eyes to track her hand, to see if it would move again.

That hand now hovered over her heart, which had taken this opportunity to get a head start on her morning aerobics. _Not-good, not-good, not-good_, it chimed. Mark would have had her pressed against the building's wall, by now, all hands and lips and intrepid physicality. Karev was waiting for her next move, respectful of them, respectful _of her_, an entirely too-tempting mound of overly-deferential, dude-you're-my-boss man-flesh. Somehow, in spite of her unfettered, often-dominant behavior in bed, she _still _needed a little help (reassurance?) with that first move. Then again, she'd had two sexual partners in the last 18 years; it was really only natural that she'd be a little out of practice with first moves. The part of her that wasn't dwelling on the feeling of rejection—unfair, she hadn't offered, but there it was regardless—was reminded that _she _didn't want to be "just another" attending sleeping with an intern, either, and she foraged for the words that would free her from this heady trance. Her eyes were finally drying, but she still felt nowhere near equal to the task before her.

"Dr. Karev," she began, but trailed off quickly. The first apology had made good sense, the second slip had been while drinking, but how did a woman who prided herself on her skillful guidance of the next generation of healers "sorry" away a _third_ instructional faux pas? At her tone, his stance had tensed with trepidation, and he seemed self-readied to receive her blow. Then her uplifted face caught the moonlight and the streaks and red rims shone, and suddenly he stood up straight. He remembered, now, just how they'd parted—and thanks to whom. Comprehension took over the lines of his face, twisting it in empathy. Another day, another time, he might have called her on it and importuned her with inquiry, but this was not that moment. Stubbing out the untouched cigarette, he pressed her arm and turned halfway, his glance conveying resignation, sympathy, and the promise of "more, later."

"Take care of yourself, Doc," he said gently—tenderly? "I'll see you in the morning." And then his fingers were gone from her sleeve and the fabric was still puckered where they'd sat and her senses were on high alert. They weren't reporting to her ovaries, though, but rather to the bottom of her gut. It was the place from which she laughed and cried. And _that_, thought Addison, was a problem beyond what lust she had considered. Because the last time her insides had done that she'd found herself married, and look how that had turned out.

She'd have to find out from Derek how to mentor once the _feelings_ came.

End of Chapter Two.

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A/N: Laundry cart shamelessly lifted from a (happy) piece by LJ's literary-critic. I probably cannot update more than once a week, but I will write if people enjoy reading. There _will_ be romantic progression, but with this warning: it will be at a pace consistent with what I see as both these characters' strong senses of professional ambition. I have detailed plans through chapter five, and I know where I want to end up. Many thanks to those who reviewed the first—you made this first-time author very happy.


	3. A Friend in Need

Not mine. K+/PG. Post-3x18. Addison and Alex grapple with professional aspirations and personal yearnings. Ongoing series. Mostly Addison/Alex with references to Addison/Mark and Addison/Derek.

Chapter Three. "A Friend in Need." Mark refuses to work with Alex. Addison enlists Alex's help with a friend.

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In the dull, ashy light of the next morning, away from the distorting effects of his physical presence, Addison registered a distinct sensation of annoyance at Karev. How dared he act the noble martyr, graciously absolving her of "guilt." Hadn't he been the last to lean in? Hadn't he run like a craven child at the first glimpse of a _real _grown man, headed his direction? These were not the actions of a dashing prince, and Addison realized she was pissed at _her_ as well, for having taken so long to notice.

She also, ducking through the drizzle on the way in from the hospital parking lot, recognized another feeling flitting just outside her consciousness: a leaden aura of regret. She'd felt it on the plane from New York, leaving Mark and an aborted baby behind. She'd choked on it that night at the Brownstone, standing abandoned in the foyer of their marital home. She'd been visited by it again, in the trailer, holding in her hand a pair of black lace panties that she'd never worn. Addison hated endings in all forms. And she and Mark, they went back forever. Letting go of him was letting go of fourteen years of life—fourteen years of "all that history." She'd been serious when she'd said it was a waste to throw it all away. Giving up Mark meant, in a way, relinquishing her last emotional tie to Derek. Relinquishing her _relationship_ with Derek. Derek had moved on, but Mark hadn't, and being with him enabled her to cling to the tangled web of emotions that had been their life in common—all three of them together. Today she grieved the loss of Derek, all over again. And this time, without Mark _or_ dirty laundry to wrap around her for protection.

In truth, Alex _was _ashamed. He'd been accepting of her truncated rejection and even a little sympathetic, the evening before, once he'd seen the traces of upset on Dr. Montgomery's face. But he hated the cowardice that had prompted it. What might have been, if he hadn't run away? Where would he stand with her, right now, and where would Sloan? He had no idea what he would've done, had he stayed, but he cursed the missed opportunity to do _something _manly and assertive all the same. He didn't know what he wanted to happen between the two of them, or even if he wanted anything at all. But he couldn't suppress the curiosity, the reflexive draw. When he recalled how her hand had _almost_ reached for him, his fingers itched to do the same. Her hands, he felt sure, would be callused and dry—no amount of lotion could save a surgeon from the ravages of "scrubbing in"—but the tendons would be firm and long, the living flesh soft but well-toned. Hers were the finger muscles of a world-class surgeon.

But he really _had_ to stop thinking that way. Like some dumbass Beatles freak, wanna-ing to hold her hand. She was his boss, she was McHot, and he'd kissed her back; it had happened, but it didn't have to happen again. And dude, he was fine with that, he seriously was—he turned the corner and almost smacked right into her. She'd been walking, brow-creased, in a gloomy daze. They opened mouths to speak at the same time. "Karev!" and, "You okay?" were overlapped, a harmony of alto tones and bass.

And there it was again, that thirst she felt, looking at what, though he was the oldest of the interns, could only be described as Karev's baby-face. It was just unfair, her mind piped up in detour, that some people were born that way: with her strong features and height, she'd always, until recently, looked older than her age. It was that face of his, proclaiming itself fatherless one night, which had moved her to take its lips in hers. Now _that_ had been an oddly maternal moment, strange in recollection, but it'd all made perfect sense in her slightly-alcoholic haze. And yet, for all his adolescent rebellion, she thought Karev older, in many ways, than Derek or Mark would ever be. In his newly-discovered empathy for patients, he left Mark quite in the dust. And Derek, bless his sweet and romantic former soul, had a powerhouse mother and five older sisters, and he'd always looked to her to dominate him in a similar way. Karev, by contrast, had a funny way of asserting himself, always when she least expected it. She found it often aggravating mostly, but on one or more occasions, a part of her had responded with a little inner thrill. There was too something present in his gruff and forward manner that screamed "experience" of some kind. But enough—this was a hospital, and she had work to do and interns to teach. When she spoke, she settled for the safely mundane. "Looking for Dr. Sloan?" she queried.

He stiffened with a faint displeasure that might easily have been mistaken for jealousy, had he forgotten that it wasn't possible. "Yeah," he grunted, searching her face for signs as to the state of her on-and-off _thing_ with that arrogant bastard. "You know where he is?"

"Haven't seen him," she replied, her tone delightfully dismissive. He suppressed the urge to sigh his relief from a fear he hadn't self-stated. Then Callie was tugging her sleeve, eyes devastated, and she was gone. He was left with the task of hunting down a man he didn't respect, to beg for work in a field he could no longer be certain was his calling.

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"George slept with Izzie."

The words burst from Callie almost before Addison had time to shut the door of the unoccupied exam room. Addison froze, hand still resting on the handle of the door. Suddenly she was back in the trailer, claustrophobic, desperately willing away the panties in her hands. _Oh, Callie_, groaned her inner voice, and her face contorted in helpless empathy. She remembered when her friend had first told her of her marriage. "But why—so—soon?" had been her gut reaction. The better friend within, of course, had soon softened those words with ones of congratulation. _She was happy for her, and of course the ring wasn't small_.

Callie's eyes scrunched up and her lips twisted, and Addison stepped forward to envelope her friend in her arms. _Valentino could go f--- himself_, she reminded herself, as saline stained her silk-blend blouse, _now was no time for worrying about clothes_. O'Malley was an idiot. That cheap peroxide hair was in desperate need of highlights, and Addison was too well-endowed herself to feel particularly impressed by curves. Of which Callie had plenty, anyway, and better ones besides—they properly belonged on her frame. Blond Barbie fantasies were for adolescent boys. But then, O'Malley was not the first to fall for Stevens' charms. A selfish and wholly irrational voice asked querulously _if Alex knew or not, and if so was he jealous?_ She shoved the thought away as though it burned.

"You can't work today," she informed the mass, in her arms, of heaving sobs and curls. "I'll get someone to take care of your patients. You're going home to rest and drink it off." She heard the mass grunt in assent, and her mind busied itself with considering how to carry out her promise.

She knew just whose help she needed.

-----

Alex found Sloan cursing over the coffee machine in the attendings' lounge. "Sir, I can get you _real _coffee—" Alex began, but the plastic surgeon cut him off.

"Save it, Karev," he growled. "I'm not working with you anymore." If Alex hadn't been so pissed, he'd almost have felt sorry for the man—Mark Sloan looked like he'd come from hell. But Alex had offered coffee and been rejected, and he wasn't sticking around to beg some more. He strode off to look for Bailey.

When he found her, before he'd had a chance to ask for an assignment in neonatal, she lashed out at him with the full force of the Nazi scorned. "What the hell did you _do_, Karev?" she demanded, without waiting for an answer. "Sloan is mad at you, and of course _I'm_ the one who gets to take the fall. Real fair, kid. You're on pit, today, and don't you even _think _of giving me mouth back." Alex's response, undeterred by her warning, was cut off when Dr. Montgomery suddenly rounded the corner, her posture steeled with brisk intention.

"I want Karev to take over Dr. Torres' cases for the day," Addison informed Bailey without preamble. O'Malley no longer deserved the dignity that Callie lent to his last name.

"He's being punished—" Bailey protested, but Addison cut her off.

"I need someone I trust to handle a large number of cases independently. _Callie _needs this now, Miranda, and I want Karev on the job." Bailey looked at her, then Alex, and nodded stiffly. Addison turned abruptly on her heels and headed towards the orthopedics ward. Alex trotted after her obediently.

He was beaming. Inwardly, that was, as it wouldn't do to let the world (or Addison) know. She _trusted _him, and more than that, she _wanted _him on the sensitive assignment. The weeks of fetching sandwiches for Mark seemed like a bizarre dream; it wasn't possible that he'd given up this feeling for a career _outside_ the plastics OR. The pride he was experiencing was a full-bodied sensation, an electric tingling from head to toe. _Don't get too close to her_, he thought, _or you'll shock her with the static._ But he found himself brushing arms with her anyway. She was there and she was _real_, and he couldn't quite believe it yet. So this was what it felt like, to have someone who believed in you.

"Look," he ventured quickly, "I know I was an ass, but I was wrong. I was wrong to leave your service, and I was wrong to think I wouldn't miss it." _Wrong to think I wouldn't miss you_. "But I'll work damned hard to make it up to you, if you'll let me back on neonatal. So, uh, don't say no, alright?" The last sentence spilled out in a rapid jumble. With eyes averted, his voice had trembled a little on the last word. He hadn't known it was what he wanted, and for a split-second after he heard himself, he was paralyzed with panic. By the time Addison responded, though, he'd decided that he meant it—every word.

Her face mirrored Helen Mirren's in a scene designed to nab an Oscar. Shock, triumph, affection, and concern took their turns in her expression. It was everything she'd hoped for from him, really. All of that and more. But then there was the way he was leaning just a little too close, the hopeful brightness in his eyes, the eager speed of his heightened breath—these things worried her. And then there was the way _she_ felt next to him, the temptation to lean into his leaning, the difficulty of decelerating her own breath. She wanted what was best for him, and she'd thought that was her specialty, but now, when he was finally standing here, speaking the words of desire straight out of her wildest professional fantasies, she found herself questioning why. And so, though her ego and every ambitious cell in her body screamed _yes_, she held the word back.

"Finish helping Dr. Torres, Karev, and come by my office at the end of the day. We'll talk."

End of Chapter Three.

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A/N: This story will be AU for everything after 3x18. Alex's career-based "revelation" at the end is modeled after a line in _Corteo _by LJ's sweetnarcosis. It's Derek/Addison, but you should read/review it—it's amazing, and you won't regret it. Find it at (kele (underscore) varekai (dot) livejournal (dot) com (slash) 8625 (dot) html).

The next chapter involves a room with a closed door and drawn blinds…. Thanks to all who took the time to review (here or on LJ)—'tis much appreciated! (Anonymous reviews now _enabled_! Sorry, no idea why that was off before.)


	4. Let Me Be the One

Not mine. T/PG-13. Post-3x18. Addison and Alex grapple with professional aspirations and personal yearnings. Ongoing series. Mostly Addison/Alex with references to Addison/Mark and Addison/Derek.

Chapter Four. "Let Me Be the One." A room with a closed door and drawn blinds.

Rating upped because I got tired of characters not swearing.

-----

_We'll talk_, she'd said, and Alex clung to the words. The euphoria that had immediately followed his spur-of-the-moment decision had mostly now subsided. All that was left was an anxious anticipation. It wasn't possible, was it, that she'd really turn him down? They'd been through so much together. He could still remember—and almost re-feel—the high of hearing her express her faith in him. In front of Bailey. In a place where everyone could hear.

It was a feeling he needed to have again, and soon. Already he'd turned into a junkie who needed his next "fix." Her words of praise had struck a chord in him that he hadn't known existed. It was sense of soaring, a feeling of invincibility, and Alex had liked the view from there. He wanted more of it, and he wanted it right away. But it had to come from Addison, so he had no idea when—or if?—it would happen again. He hadn't seen her all day—not since this morning. He had been counting the minutes since.

The Alex Karev of old, the one he was familiar with, had always been one helluva cocky bastard. That was _doubly_ true when it came to wrestling, and to women. But now? He was still pretty sure about his wrestling—figured he could take Sloan on, any day of the week, and pin him down. But women? Women had become a problem. Or, to tell the truth, _one_ woman was the problem. By now, he'd pretty much recovered from the whole failure-to-get-it-up-with-Izzie thing. (He figured multiple booty calls daily for several weeks straight had redeemed his manhood there.)

But Addison was different, somehow. She was a woman, sure, and a sexy one at that, but she was also a woman who was _in charge_. And that threw him off. That put him off-balance and made him take a step back, or two, or three. He was never sure what she'd do next. She was unpredictable—in a whole different league of her own. Which would be perfectly fine, if only the success of his days hadn't become so infernally tied to hers. When she looked one way at him, he swelled three sizes; when she scolded, he sank right through the floor. It quite frankly, _sucked_, to be mostly estrogen-free, but still fettered to a damned menstrual cycle in his moods.

Except then she'd smile at him, fondly, and he'd smile back, and it would trace a warm path down from the center of his chest to the pit of his belly, like the heated trail left by a sip of fine brandy. And that was worth it. If he hadn't known better (but Alex was the smart and _sensible _intern), it was a feeling he might easily have mistaken for love.

Sneaking into Jane Doe's room between a couple of Callie's patients, Alex was struck instantly by a sense of _belonging._ O'Malley had collapsed in a hung-over mess; he was passed out in a chair by the door. That figured. _This _was what happened when he wasn't around. Jane Doe was sleeping, too (but she was a patient—she was allowed to do that), so Alex was careful and quiet as he maneuvered the fetal monitor to examine her womb. All was well. But someone needed to make sure it _stayed _that way, and Alex couldn't be everywhere at once. He jabbed O'Malley in the chest. The shorter man jumped and snorted before peering blearily up at him.

"Dude," Alex hissed softly, "You're supposed to be _watching _her baby. Get it together already." That idiot. _Seriously._

When he'd run to neonatal it'd been a reactionary response to being booted out of plastics. But with the decision made, the path seemed like the only one he'd ever known. Everything before had just been detour—wasted energy and wasted time. Once he'd finally figured it out, he only wondered what had taken him so long. It was now the only future he could imagine. But it began to look like Addison—fickle woman that she was—might take from him the one real thing in medicine he'd found. He wouldn't stand for it, he decided, frowning as he dragged himself out of Jane Doe's room. He wouldn't let her shake him off her, no matter what she said. And if she tried? Chivalrous principles be damned, he'd pin _her _to the ground. (And maybe lie there, beside her, forever.)

But would she try to shake him? He didn't know. He desperately wanted to believe that she wanted him there. Remembering the scene in front of Bailey, he could've sworn she did. But her face later, when he'd asked to come back to her service, had kicked the air out of his confidence. And yet he'd thought he'd been convincing. He'd almost said _please_, for crying out loud—"don't say no" was as close in his adult life as he'd ever come to begging. And he thought he'd seen a spark in her eyes kindled by his own enthusiasm. She'd been thrilled for a moment, of that much he felt sure. But why the change? For there had been one, no doubts there. It had taken place somewhere in the half second between his speech and her cool, non-committal response. But why remained a mystery.

Still, her face had been so certain, so _sure_, when she'd demanded him from Bailey. She'd brooked no questions about her judgment, and hell, she didn't seem the kind of woman to query it on her own. For all the disorder of her personal life, for all the insecurity he'd seen in her as a _woman_ and _lover_, the professional Dr. Montgomery was a force to be reckoned with. And that force was every bit aware of her own power.

She sure kept _him_ running around in circles. As an intern with practically no ortho experience, there was little that he could do here in the way of real medicine. He ran around checking in on Callie's patients, rescheduling surgeries, finding residents to fill in on urgent cases. He was, in essence, a glorified paper boy; it was not a job that required a surgeon's skill.

What it did demand, as he went around, startling on-edge patients with his unfamiliar face, was an extraordinary gift for bedside manner. A year ago Alex—and everyone who knew him—would have laughed at the notion that one of his greatest strengths would turn out to be with "people." Well, really, he still sucked at _that_, but he was also slowly realizing that what he'd told O'Malley, that day in the morgue, had actually been true. He still couldn't handle most "people," but he _was_ learning how to deal with "patients." And that was something he'd figured out working for her.

Yes, on something as disturbingly warm and gooey like this, he was more than willing to give credit where credit was due. He wasn't ready to call his gentle tone with the angry teenage girl before him instinct, yet, but he could recognize in his voice the imitation of a tone _she'd_ used. The same was true when he lightly placed his hand, soothing but still clinical, on the trembling shoulder of the old man in the next room. Dr. Montgomery was a toucher—not a sketchy one, but a fuzzy human-contact type all the same. Those skillful hands—which he'd spent so much time fantasizing over, lately—were as crucial to her in the exam room as in the OR.

It wasn't until now, working an entire resident's caseload on his own, that he realized just how much he'd _noticed _about her. Just a few weeks ago, moved by the plaintive loneliness in her tone, he'd promised her he'd notice if she went missing. At the time it had been a gesture of kindness, but looking back he was struck by just how true it was. He had always noticed her, and he always would, _wherever_ she was at that time. She didn't need to go missing in order to have his full attention. And while it was his job, as an intern, to observe and learn, he seriously doubted that any of his fellow first-years had picked out half the things he had, when they were lucky enough to shadow her.

One of those fellow interns suddenly grabbed his arm and dragged him into the nearest supply closet. _Oh hell_, he thought, _it figures._ He _would_ be caught right in the nexus of the storm. Here he was, trying to help a broken woman get back on her feet, and now the one who'd knocked her down was holding him hostage. "Izzie—what the hell?"

She pressed him against the wall and started furiously kissing him. A combination of shock and common courtesy kept him held in place for three beats, four, then he gently but firmly extracted himself from her embrace. "_Izzie_," he said more gently. "What's wrong?" She burst into tears, and he put his arms around her.

Taking care of Izzie was a reflex for him, now. Their time together had been brief, but the _something _that he'd felt for her ensured he'd always hear her out, not matter when or where or what. It was loyalty, pure and simple. Just because you weren't _with _a person anymore, didn't mean you ever stopped looking after them.

And then he _got _it, and he had to catch his breath: _so this is how Addison feels about Shepherd. _Though it was probably ten times stronger (worse) for her And there was no way he would ever be able to compete with that. (Not that he cared.) He watched as Izzie pulled back, all sobbed out, and brought his thumbs up to wipe her face. "Alright, there?" he asked softly, and she nodded. It was a tiny nod, a brave little motion, an I'm-not-fine-but-I-will-be-so-okay.

When Izzie left, recovered just enough to feel embarrassed, he allowed himself to rest there for a while. He couldn't compete with Shepherd, that he got, but this thing with Izzie had made him think. _Who does _she_ turn to when she needs to cry? _he wanted to know, but the answer didn't seem obvious. _It must have been Mark_, he realized, and he felt that bristling at his neck again. He'd heard the rumors of their latest little fiasco. But she didn't have Mark, now, either, and there was a little guilt in there. _That was mostly thanks to him._

He scanned the next chart and headed to room 1407B, but as he walked, he made a silent vow to make amends. _She may have lost Mark_, he told himself, _but she won't have to deal with that alone. _She was one tough cookie, that Dr. Montgomery was, but Alex figured he stood a better chance than most of her allowing him to help her. So, he'd be there for her, if she needed him. As a friend or a coworker or whatever. Whether she wanted his help or not.

So he had a history of needing to save women. Whatever, it didn't _mean _anything; he'd cared about his mother, too. Back on the banks of de Nile, Alex told himself he'd tell her, if she asked, that the hovering was really just a filial thing. And that was all. Well, that, and an empathy thing. Because Alex too had been there, hell, Alex _was _there, wanting and not having and feeling uncomfortably alone. But now—here was another patient.

-----

Addison skipped the greeting and went right to her point: "Derek, I think Mark's going to need you, for today." Derek sighed and turned around. This abandoned office was supposed to be _his_ place.

"Addison. _Hello_. How are you?" he inquired with mock-politeness. "And when you get divorced…"

"… doesn't that mean your wife's supposed to stop nagging you?" she finished. "Yes, it does. _Unless_ there are special circumstances." He raised an eyebrow at her.

"And there are 'special circumstances' today?" She nodded curtly and dragged up a nearby chair. She looked guilty._ Oh, Addison, what have you gone and done now? _"I dumped Mark," she stated, and he waited for her to finish. The statement seemed an obvious one and hardly news. Had they even been together? "And so?" he prompted.

"And so he's going to come to you, Derek, because he's got nobody else, and I think you really ought to let him."

"The hell I will." He looked away from her.

"Well, _alright _then. What's your big problem, anyway?" She responded to his whiny tone with a rising note of aggravation in her own.

"My _problem_ is in having the man who stabbed me in the back demand _solace _from me for his dumping by my ex-wife, whom he seduced into the adultery that ended our marriage."

"That's funny," she spat back, "I seem to remember a pair of black lace panties in my hands right around the time we agreed to get divorced—how come _my _adultery's the only one that ever comes into play?" Easily, of course, since hers was first, but Addison was frustrated and horny and sick of being noble and tired of accuracy and truth. "We're _over_, Derek. Both of the us's in this equation—me and Mark, me and you—we're over. Why can't you two make nice? Drink, bond, commiserate over what an unfeeling slut I am. Whatever it takes. Why can you talk to me but not to him?"

He was silent for a second, and then he looked at her with eyes so cold she involuntarily shivered. "He was my _best friend_, Addie, and I can't replace what he betrayed. A man can find a new wife, but he can never find a new brother."

She didn't stick around to press her case.

-----

Addison gave up on doing anything useful for the rest of the afternoon, electing to hide it out in her office instead. A head of a surgical unit like her could always, if questioned, simply gesture at her desk, which boasted an impressive mountain of paperwork. She sighed. The days without Mark (or the promise of Mark) could not possibly _continue_ to be this long. _Screw Derek_, she thought angrily, as she swiped her cheeks, brusquely, with the back of her hand.

_So what _if he had Meredith now. So what if he was sickeningly happy, _everywhere_, and all of the time. She didn't rain on folk's parades—that wasn't who she was. But surely basic manners ought to stop him from skipping up to her to rub his "bright-and-shiny!" in her face.

But she really had to quit feeling sorry for herself all the time. Today should be about Callie, _her friend_, whose life right now made Addison's look a lot like Disneyland, without the wait. Oh, Callie. How was she going to mend what O'Malley had wrecked? Addison had slept with the best friend—harsh stuff, she didn't defend it—but O'Malley had had relations with the _enemy_. Addison was impatient to get back to the hotel and look in on Callie. She couldn't leave her friend all alone tonight. It occurred to her that in some screwed-up former universe, she might have called for Mark's help with the task. After all, he and Callie had slept together once already. A repeat treat would have had the comfort of familiarity, and Mark was nothing if not great in bed.

But contact of any kind with Mark, sadly, was not an option for her today. And she was worried about him, too. Derek's reaction to her request for help there had been decidedly unsatisfactory. There were many things to regret about the way things had turned out for all of them—like the loss of her marriage, for starters—but the destruction of the two boys' life-long friendship _had_ been a cardinal offense. Hurtful though it might have been for her to hear them, Derek's words had been no lie. They _had_ had something else, those two. Her presence—with Mark's long-quashed feelings for her—had really made a mess of it all.

With only two true, long-term friends in Seattle, one the source of his pain and the other refusing to speak to him, Mark might well be worse off now than even Callie. If Callie had no one else, she damned well at least had _Addison._ But maybe, she clutched at straws here, _maybe_ she was overestimating her importance in Mark's life. It had been just eight days since they'd made that silly bet—eight days wasn't time enough for a complete personality reversal. He was probably, as she sat here, agonizing over him like an idiot, in the very throes of kinky sex with a hot young model somewhere.

Hot and young. It was sad, really, how easily her thoughts went that direction. _Ah, yes_. That was her other excuse for sitting and moping in her office. _How much time until he was supposed to arrive? _She really did need to figure out what to say to him. But thinking about Karev was hardly going to help her hold a moratorium on self-absorption. Because she needed to deal with his delightful and perplexing request. And that meant thinking about _him_, and worse, it meant thinking about how _she_ felt towards him. Back to square one again. Really, it was an All-Addison, All-the-Time afternoon special that just _wouldn't turn off _in her unaccommodating mind.

It was not so much her attraction to him that was the problem, really, so much the fear that one day she might actually _give in_ to the lust. If only that fear were without basis. Her mortification after their first near-kiss had _seemed_ at the time the most spectacular of embarrassments. But _that_ was before she'd had the shame of having actually_ attempted to seduce him_. At Joe's, too, right in public, where just about anybody might have seen. There she hadn't even had the excuse of mutual culpability—he'd sat there, she'd grabbed him, and the rest was wince-inducing history. His passivity when she was done kissing him should have clued her in. Instead her tipsy self had smiled like a loony and sat gazing fondly at him for a while. Afterwards, she'd staggered off to her hotel room all alone (minus the fantasies). And then the next week he had dragged her into that supply closet, and that was that. The whole thing was an excruciating memory.

Still, she had to admit that this latest development was a deeply gratifying triumph. How her coworkers would have laughed, just weeks before, if she'd boasted that her contemptuous former intern would soon be _begging_ to return. To the Gynie Squad? They'd never have believed it. _If only she could believe it was the right thing to do_. And there was the knock on her door. She had to decide, and quickly. "Come in," she called.

He stepped halfway in, but lingered, one hand resting on the door jamb. "It's dark in here," he observed idly. It was true. The blinds were shut and she'd been sitting, lights-off, in near-total darkness. (She'd always liked a little melodramatic mood-setting when she brooded.)

When he shut the door behind him, though—back now pressed against the door—the shift in atmosphere was immediate. It was too intimate a setting. They both shifted a little, uneasily, in the shadows. Addison fought a rising tide of claustrophobia. She had the urge to reach for the switch on her desk lamp, and free them from this spell. But that would _show _she was uncomfortable, and Addison had appearances to keep up. She was no coward.

And because she was no coward, she rose from her seat, walked around her desk, and perched lightly on the front edge. She'd always thought people who felt the need to peer at _the help _over the barrier of a desk had to be just a tiny bit insecure. They were now five feet apart.

"So," he said. She echoed him. "Go ahead and have a seat, Karev."

And then he did the unthinkable. He walked up right next to her, and placed himself just a few inches further down on her desk. Not touching, but close enough to brush by accident if either moved. Side-by-side, the way she and Derek had used to be when they hung out at the top of the Empire State Building. They'd gazed back then, not at each other, but together—at the same view. Just as well there was no light in here. There was nothing for them to see; there could be no view in common.

Alex had no idea why he'd chosen to sit _next _to Dr. Montgomery. The chair before her desk had seemed so "principal's office," the couch too much like a visit to the shrink. But both appeared like lesser evils now. Because here he was, and now he could _smell _things: coffee, perfume, surgery, and sweat. He'd had a speech all ready, about his skills, his energy, his _willingness _to learn, some drivel about the certainty that he'd found his calling. All gone. He sat there like a deaf-mute—every drop of blood gone from his brain, right at the moment when he needed it. She sighed.

"What I'm about to tell you, Karev, stays in this room." He nodded though he knew she couldn't see it. "The reason I'm not saying yes, right now, is because I think you need to figure some stuff out. You need to think, real hard, about _why _it is you want to go neonatal." He opened his mouth to protest, but she cut him off. "Just wait." Then she turned to face him and his eyes had adjusted and the light from a crack in the blinds hit her face. He could dimly see the end-of-day remains of her foundation, the bump of a cream-concealed mole on the side of her nose. The natural color of her lips peeked out, at the corner of her mouth, where the lipstick had worn off. It was oddly transfixing. "Because this thing," she leaned in closer and his shoulder twitched, "_cannot _be the reason." He almost began to ask, "what thing?" But his mouth was dry and his skin was prickling and there was no denying that he knew exactly what she meant.

She rose and turned to face him. "It's a tough field," she said. "A long commitment, a lot to learn. You have to be ten kinds of specialists—cardiac, vascular, orthopedic, you name it—and you have to be able to practice those specialties on a scale ten times smaller than anyone else. It's challenging, but it's a challenge _many _interns would kill to have a decent stab at. I like working with you, Karev, I won't deny it, but I've had requests to take on students from _several_ different departments. The peds folk, OB/GYN folk, genetic disorders folk—everybody wants a piece of what I have to teach. So before I give you time that could be offered elsewhere, you'd better be a sure thing."

"I—" _am_, he'd been about to say, but she interrupted him again. "This has been a sudden decision, on your part—don't deny it, you know it's true." She inhaled.

"You always dreamed of plastics, Alex," he was distracted from another protest by the use of his first name. "And Mark Sloan, no matter how he treats his interns, no matter what he does outside of work, no matter what," she paused with guilt, "_I_ may have said in the past, Mark Sloan is one heck of a plastic surgeon. If you can get him to teach you, actually teach you, you will learn an amazing amount from him. So he's pissed at you right now, sure, fine, but that's my fault, and he'll forgive you if I make him. So don't discount the option on that account."

She paused for breath, and continued. "The last intern I tried to mentor," she said slowly, "was suspended for reckless endangerment leading to the death of a patient." _Izzie_. He nodded with understanding. "I mean to be careful whom I take on next, because I need to know they're going to be strong enough to stick it out through my lessons." Ah. There it was. He remembered the episode with the quints—it had been at the height of his infatuation with Izzie. He'd commiserated with her at the time and tossed out some choice pejoratives at the then-called Dr. Shepherd. It made him blush to recall them now. As it turned out? She'd been _right_ about Izzie, anyway. _Izzie_. He remembered her kiss from earlier that day. Her tongue had practically been down his throat. But he hadn't felt a tenth of what his skin registered right now—and he hadn't even _touched_ the woman standing here.

She took a step toward him, and the fabric of his scrubs shifted where it came in contact with her skirt. She was breathing shallowly, and the trembling of her hands belied the stern expression on her face. "I can't be disappointed like that again." She bowed her head, and with her standing like that and him slouched down, their faces were nearly at the exact same level. And then his _presence_ filled her senses and she couldn't move or think and then suddenly it was clear. She knew what she had to do. She simply couldn't trust herself to give him the uncomplicated and fair guidance he deserved. She had been fooling herself all along. She was too involved already, and he was better than that kind of thing. They both were.

"I think," she murmured reluctantly, "for your own good—I think I should probably tell you no."

His brain refused to process that. His heart was beating just a little bit too fast, his palms were sweating, and he really had to admit that he could kind of see her earlier point. Because it was _hot _in here, and the thermostat read 62°, and—damn it—he needed a cold shower. "This thing" was not why he wanted to work with babies, but it sure as hell was keeping him from being able to articulate why he did. Alex wasn't "just another intern," like Yang or Grey or even O'Malley, but right now? In this moment? He couldn't for the life of him remember why it had to stay that way. And yet all of that was neither here nor there. It didn't mean he didn't want to study neonatal stuff as well. It didn't mean he wasn't committed. Currently, though, he was having some trouble breathing, and while he desperately needed to explain it to her, he didn't know how.

"But it's what I want," he pleaded, almost inaudibly.

And then suddenly, watching his lips move, it occurred to Addison that their mouths were the same distance apart as they'd been the day before. Her better half was panicking: _oh, not again—_and, _this is wrong_. She shivered. Why had she taken that last step? She didn't _think_ her subconscious guilty of premeditation. They froze right there, suspended in the increasingly close air. A host of seconds passed, it seemed. Or maybe it was only three or four.

She was the first to crack. Stepping back, she sidled around her desk and put the large wood _thing _in the space between them. She was a coward, after all. _What should she say next? _Her script had vanished. She opened her mouth to tell him to go, get out of her hair, find a new specialty, leave her to think… but nothing came out. So she waited. Then, all of a sudden, the words spilled forth unbidden. And Addison found herself issuing yet _another_ timed ultimatum. It was as much of a surprise to her as the other had been. Only this time, she didn't regret it.

"You know what? Give it three weeks. I'll try out some other candidates, and you'll try out other fields. Then you can tell me if this is what you really want. You can tell me if you're willing to devote day and night to making this work, if you're in it for the long haul, if it's how you see yourself ten years from now. Three weeks, and I'll ask you again if you intend to take this on for real. If it's still true, then I'll decide. I'll decide if I'm willing to stake everything I've got on you. That sound okay?"

It was. And he felt immensely relieved and a bit short on air and kind of like he needed to leave the room. So he split, and he didn't stop moving until he was splashing cold water on his face in the men's washroom. It was only then that he reflected on the _language _of what she'd said. It didn't sound all that much like the admission requirements for a residency program. In fact, it sounded a hell of a lot more like a set of wedding vows. But then, Alex supposed, that made some sense. Six years was more than half the length of the Shepherd marriage, anyhow.

He was sure he'd soon be promising, "I do."

End of Chapter Four.

-----

A/N: A waste of a perfectly good location, yes, I know. Sorry. Oh and FYI, my residency training timelines are 100 percent fuzzy. (I like to think that makes my world more like the show's.) As usual, my thanks to all who reviewed!

Those 50 seconds of 3x19 made me positively giddy. First thought? "No fanfic will ever be able to capture the sizzling miracle that is KW, JC, and the words 'Good night, Dr. Karev.' _Ever._" (GG sighs in utter contentment.)

Chapter Five sees Alex make his pitch. And he actually gets to talk this time. (EDA: next Thursday.)

P.S. Thanks to the _lovely _sweetnarcosis (♥!) for her prose tips—she's like God, except for the fact that she actually replies to fan mail. I know I didn't do your advice justice here at all—but I promise I did try.


	5. QED

Not mine. T/PG-13. Post-3x18. Addison and Alex grapple with professional aspirations and personal yearnings. Ongoing series. Mostly Addison/Alex with references to Addison/Mark and Addison/Derek.

Chapter Five. "Q.E.D." Three weeks of silence. Then Alex makes his pitch. (This one's for Angela.)

-----

By a tacit agreement, both Alex and Addison made a point of avoiding each other for the duration of the three weeks. They even gave up basic salutations. When they passed each other in the hallway, they shared a nod and a quirk of the lips, but no greeting and no names. There were no _Good night, Dr. Karev's_.

It was just as well. She had a way of saying his name that was, at best, unhelpful, to his task of figuring out why he so badly wanted to study her field. Her voice _smiled _in a way that always struck beneath his sternum. But Alex was determined to take her at her word. He was going to use these three weeks to confirm his interest in the work itself, _without_ the redhead, and he was going to make a case for himself that she wouldn't be able to ignore. So what if it was strangely pleasant to be around her? So what if he found himself interested in—not obsessed with, just aware of—her smallest moves? Whatever it took, he was going to bring his intellectual—strictly non-sexual—interests forward. Dr. Alex Karev was a man with a professional mission, here.

By day three, though, he'd started to notice that he missed her, just a little. Not _missed _like some kind of big, Meredith-level flip-out deal or anything. It was just that he'd kinda gotten used to having her around. She'd been a part of his day, usually, and now she wasn't. That was weird, anyway. Because when she wasn't yelling at him—which happened more often than people who only caught their screaming hallway exchanges thought—she was really sort of nice. In a way he hadn't expected from the woman who'd kept him examining vaginas for months as punishment for refusing to tell a patient's husband a lie. Though he'd complained about that for a little longer than it had actually bugged him. (After all, he couldn't have the other interns knowing that he _liked _things that way.) Things were just a little… _off_ now. Without her hovering about.

Plus, she was easy on the eyes. He _was_ a guy, after all.

Still, life back on rotation wasn't all bad. It was pretty fun to watch Shepherd, Sloan, and Burke at work—he'd forgotten how the pissing contests they had going amused him. It was also cool when he finally got to hold a heart in his hand, even if Grey, Yang, _and _O'Malley had gotten there first. And when he lost a patient, it still sucked, but he was secretly relieved the guy was old. Watching babies die had put stuff in a new perspective for him, somehow.

-----

On the fourth day, Addison had started to feel concerned. Not stressed, not freaked out—yet, but concerned. Because four days into her self-enforced no-contact with Karev, she was _noticing_ that she was lonely. Not lonely for him, per se, just lonely. She longed for both Mark and Derek, and without a guy around, it was just harder to ignore.

She'd worked with O'Malley, but if he'd hardly counted as a guy before, he was on her total crap list now. Even if he hadn't cheated on her friend—they'd declared a truce and were "working on it"—he'd never been her type. He wasn't interested, anyhow. And there was the thing about Karev. It wasn't so much that she wanted to _sleep _with him (though it was possible she did) as that he noticed her as a _woman_. That was all. A woman liked to feel noticed, once in a while. And recent divorcées—who'd just dumped their adulterous lovers—_needed _it, just that much more. And Karev was usually somewhere nearby.

She felt the loss of him most at the end of the day. When they'd worked together, whichever of them got off first would find the other before leaving: he to report, she to instruct. When she'd let him off her service, they'd kept it up. They didn't always have something specific to say, though she could usually able to stir up some small talk about patients (he kept informed of the NICU doings). But they'd say good night to each other, at least. It had made a difference.

She was a woman at the end of a near twelve-year marriage: for a third of her life, she'd been accountable to someone else. Someone had known when she went home. Someone had heard how her day had been. Someone, even if they hadn't wanted to, had had the _responsibility _of caring. Derek hadn't always been the best husband, but he'd been there, and he'd been _hers_. It had been her right to demand that he care. With him gone, she'd found herself clinging to those few minutes with Karev at the end of every day. They were what made her existence _real_. (If a tree falls in a forest….) He'd begun to replace Derek (and Mark) as the audience to the drama of her daily life.

Now she couldn't even say to him, "Hey there." And naturally, that had been her own idea.

-----

The sixth day arrived. By now, Alex had a plan. There was just one catch—he'd have to talk to Yang. He kind of liked the Asian intern, actually—not as a friend, but as a character. She entertained him. And she was the only one with a _tougher _outside than he had. But the fact that he liked her didn't mean she didn't intimidate him. So, this wasn't going to be fun. They had about thirty seconds before Grey, O'Malley, and Stevens showed up with their lunches.

"Hey Yang, uh, I need a favor." She turned to him that blank, sphinx-like face of hers. He figured that was her way of encouraging him to continue. So he spit it out. "I've got to study a bunch of procedures for, uh, neonatal stuff. To prove my interest, and all. So Dr. Montgomery will take me back." She didn't bat an eyelash. "So would you, you know, sit and quiz me? Like before?" He shut up and waited for a response. Then the three other interns were sitting down and the moment was lost.

"Alex wants back on the Gynie Squad," Yang's expression _still _hadn't moved. "He wants me to help him study, so he can impress the She-Shepherd with his knowledge of _vaginas_. Knowledge of other women's, Alex, or just hers?"

He took the liking back. Clearly, Yang _sucked_. O'Malley and Grey sat with their mouths hanging open. And Izzie looked almost… hurt. How the hell did she think this concerned _her_?

But maybe this was some sort of test. After all, what kind of baby doctor would he be, if he couldn't even admit the desire to be one to his friends, out loud? So he tried on defiance, to see how it fit. "Look, if I get what I want, I'll be doing the same shit as you all, but on a scale ten times smaller," wasn't that how Addison had put it? "So when you're _that _good, then we'll talk." As he talked, Alex started to feel a little pissed off. For real. Because he, his specialty, and Dr. Montgomery too? They deserved a hell of a lot more respect than what they were getting. He shoved back his chair and jerked upright. He left, and put his tray away.

Later, he was stitching up the smashed forehead of the champion of a roller derby, when he sensed that freaky, suddenly-right-there aura Yang always had. She was like a ghost, that one was. "Bring the books to the tunnel when you've finished here," she said. "You'd better bake me some damned cookies when we're done."

-----

Ten days in, Derek pulled Addison aside in order to apologize. "I was an ass, and I'm sorry," he began and then paused. She didn't object.

"You're not—Meredith, she's not like you." Addison raised her eyebrows at that. _Well, obviously._ "What I mean," Derek tried again, staring at the floor, "is that she's not a replacement. She's—we're—what she and I have is _different_. You know you'll always have a place. In my life, that is. You and I, that still stands for something. And I'll never have anyone who means the same thing to me as you do."

Addison spoke carefully, working her words around the sudden lump in her throat. "Thank you, Derek. And…it's okay. About the other day. I—I get it, really, I do." Their eyes met and each was surprised to see the glittering in the other pair. "And for the record, I'm sorry, too."

It was an open-ended apology, Derek-style. They'd always annoyed her—she saw them as him neglecting the responsibility to examine the specifics of his sins. But right now, it just felt right. She wasn't avoiding details—she was simply acknowledging the enormity of their screw-ups, the impossibility of mere _words_ doing justice to them.

But she had to give her plea one last try. She placed a hand on his shoulder, an echo of her old proprietary manner toward him. "You'll try to hear Mark out?" she asked. "It's only fair." He stared at her for a moment, then nodded. "Alright, fine. I'll talk to him."

-----

Day fourteen had sucked. _Like, majorly_. And Alex was tired and the on-call rooms were full and the hallways were noisy. He just wanted to sit down, somewhere. A sudden inspiration took him to the obstetrics floor. He walked past the door to the NICU first, so he could get a peek inside. The coast was clear. Alex snuck inside and let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. That house with the madwomen was just the place where he slept; it wasn't his home. But this place, with its incubators and dim lighting and the creaky rocking chair and that pile of ratty old bundling—this place came close. Alex walked to the incubator in the left corner and lifted Wendy (from that C-section two weeks ago) into his arms and just held her for a while.

-----

On day fourteen, Addison finished off a stack of paperwork, exhaled, and got up to stretch her legs. She went to take a look over her NICU, to make sure everything was in order. She liked to say hi to her smaller patients every so often. But she was bone tired, and her walk wasn't its usual quick clip. Coming up to the door, more slowly than usual, she saw the shadow of a figure she'd recognize anywhere. He was holding something—was that Wendy Mathers?—in his arms. Her lips twisted in amusement, but she stopped walking. Knowing Karev, he'd be embarrassed to be caught here. She decided her inspection tour could wait, and carefully crept away, back to her office.

Five days later, she caught him at it again. Only this time he was curled up in the rocking chair, asleep. It was a sight even _her_ cold, world-weary heart had to warm to. She couldn't resist a smile. An open chart lay perched precariously on his knees, half-falling. Moving cautiously, quietly, she tiptoed over to where he sat and lifted the chart up with the tips of her fingers. Shutting it slowly, she placed it on the table next to him. She watched him with a sense of sighing warmth that was not unlike affection. He hadn't stirred. Then she snuck out, with only one last backward glance at him through the open door.

-----

At the end of the twenty-first day, Alex found Addison in her office. When she saw him enter, she put her pen down and peered at him over her glasses, expectantly. He had his speech memorized; he was ready. He took a breath and launched right in.

"It's not because of the thing. It's the work—I want to do the work." She opened her mouth to talk, but Alex cut her off.

"Just hear me out, alright? Look, I made Yang help me study up on neonatal procedures. I'm on top of the details for every case you've got right now. I've researched what I need to be a good neonatal surgeon, and I'm already planning how to take rotations outside your service in obstetrics, pediatrics, and genetic disorders, so I'll know which end is up. I want to be a neonatal surgeon, and I want to learn how by working with _you_."

He paused for breath. She was staring at him in silence, face inscrutable. He went on.

"I want to work with you because you're the best on the West Coast. I want to work with you because you're one of four surgeons in this country who have ever fixed a premie's piriform aperture stenosis. I want to work with you because you always put your patients first, no matter what, and because the minute you enter the room even the most freaked-out pregnant women begin to relax. I want to work with you because you care about _teaching_ and you recognize that interns are here to learn. I want to work with you, because I felt like a worthless moron after failing my boards the first time, and because that didn't change until you started showing me what I was capable of. But at the end of the day," he smirked self-mockingly, "I just really want to save small babies. Is that enough?"

_Was that enough?!_ Addison was tingling with excitement from head to toe. But she had to double-check, one last time: "It's not because of the thing?"

"It's not."

"You're absolutely sure?" He nodded solemnly and childishly crossed his heart for emphasis. The smile that had been straining against the muscles of her cheeks would stand suppression no longer. _This could be_, she thought, _the start of a beautiful mentorship_.

"Okay," she said as calmly as she could. "We're on."

The echo of her broken pact with Mark had been unconscious.

End of Chapter Five.

-----

A/N: Yes, that was a very bad _Casablanca_ reference. Please bear with me, folks. I've got a ridiculously happy, sappy ending all written out for this series; I've just got to make it through the seven chapters before it, first…. _Sigh_.

Meredith and Izzie are "madwomen" because the Alex of sydney gray's _Viscosity _says so. The idea for this story was just the symptom of a weekend of severe _Viscosity_ withdrawal. Like compulsively eating M&Ms when you've run out of Teuscher champagne truffles. (I won't bother to link, because I'm sure you're all on pins and needles reading it, alongside me. See my profile if you're in the 0.02 percent who aren't.)

Chapter six, Addison discovers that she needs Alex's help in a personal matter. Thanks so much to all who reviewed!


	6. Strength in Numbers

Not mine. T/PG-13. Post-3x18. Addison and Alex grapple with professional aspirations and personal yearnings. Ongoing series. Mostly Addison/Alex with references to Addison/Mark and Addison/Derek.

Chapter Six. "Strength in Numbers." Addison discovers that she needs Alex's help in a personal matter. (And now we enter phase two of this story.)

-----

It had taken Alex three weeks to figure out that his love for neonatology was real, independent of any feelings for his red-haired mentor. But it took Addison three _months_ to admit to herself that she had a serious problem with him.

-----

The first week or two of their reunion was bliss. Alex was high off his career's newfound direction. He bounded about the hospital with a perpetually giddy grin on his face. Meanwhile, Addison was quietly grateful for the return of his presence. She yelled at him less than usual, and let him scrub in even when the procedure was routine.

Alex was suffused, these days, with a general sense of well-being. He chalked it up to the relief of finally knowing where he was _going_, in life. Having career prospects—specific, exciting prospects—was truly a treat. And if his pulse sped up a little when Dr. Montgomery came by in the mornings to take him away? Just the extra kick of energy a brownnoser got in the presence of authority. (He needed that to succeed.)

Addison was having an easier time getting up in the morning. After three weeks of exhaustion—tough cases, angry patients—things were starting finally to look up. Karev's enthusiasm for her work was contagious; she was remembering why she'd gone into it in the first place, all over again. Watching him eagerly administer to a patient, she felt an odd constriction in her chest. It wasn't unpleasant. _Pride._ _That's what it was_. The pride of a teacher blessed with a very bright student, and nothing more.

-----

Derek and Mark were friends again. Addison had seen them gossiping together in the scrub room—it was just like old times. But Mark hadn't spoken to her yet. Which was why, when she felt a tap on her shoulder, she was surprised to turn around and see him standing there.

"Mark," she greeted him cautiously. "What's going on?"

"Addison," he still said her name with a tinge of disappointment. "I need your help with Derek." It seemed their friend was suffering post-traumatic stress from Meredith's brush with death. Stress that Grey herself seemed to have escaped entirely. (But then, bombs and drowning had never fazed the intern. Only married boyfriends did.) Mark wanted Addison to go with him to try and get Derek to open up. He was being difficult, Mark said. Addison offered him some tips on getting Derek to talk when he was clamming up. But she refused to go with him.

"Two reasons, Mark. First, I think this would be better between 'just guys.' Second… well, this makes me a selfish person, I get that. But do you really think I want to put myself through _begging _Derek to rant about his pure and perfect love for his new girlfriend?"

Mark got that. Really, he did. He thanked her for her ideas, and let her be.

-----

Burke was given the Chief of Surgery position. Richard announced it in the lobby. Few were truly surprised: it had always been planned that way. Derek was furious; Mark openly miffed. Addison took the blow calmly, in the crowd. Later, she retreated to her office to nurse her disappointment. Sitting wearily down at her desk, she closed her eyes and rested her face in her hands.

"You would've been great, you know." Addison looked up. Karev was standing in the doorway of her office, watching her. She threw him a brief half-smile. "Thanks," she replied. He walked in and placed a completed chart on her desk. "Mrs. Jenners," he informed her, before turning to leave. But he paused again before exiting and turned his head to look back at her.

"Burke's a good surgeon, but so are you. His people skills, though? Suck compared to yours. And dealing with people, that's like, a big part of being Chief, right? So anyhow, I think they made the wrong decision. Not that my opinion matters, or anything. But… just so you know." The young man ducked his head, as if embarrassed, and left the room.

-----

Addison was tired of feeling like a bad person. For more than a year now, she'd been "an adulterous bitch." Which was fine. And true. And she'd grown accustomed to it. But now? Now she was some kind of predatory Mrs. Robinson. Which _had_ been fine when it was just lust. Because that she could control, that was not something she was in danger of _acting _on. That night with Mark aside, she really wasn't an uncontrollable nymphomaniac. Heck, she hadn't had sex since she and Mark had ended it for good…and she was still (barely) alive, wasn't she? But being a cougar with _feelings_—well, that would take some getting used to.

_Adultery_, people said, _destroys your ability to look at yourself in the mirror and see a good person._ Well, she'd learned to live with that side of herself. She'd hated her appearance, at first. She'd painted herself angrily back then—the months immediately following her affair had seen her sporting the most severe makeup of her life. Dark red lips pursed to evil perfection. Eyes lined like Marilyn Manson's. Because the problem with her reflection? Had been the _lack _of guilt written on her face. She had felt, then, like a latter-day Dorian Gray—the makeup had helped her match the face she turned to the world, with the wretched whore she saw inside.

These feelings of _lechery_, however, were new. And Addison wished they were just that—lechery—and nothing more. But the strange rhythm of her heart, the skipped beats and raised volume, said otherwise. It was all so _wrong_. She'd really hit a new low, this time.

How Derek had been able just to waltz right up to his intern, flirt with her, and ask her out—free of shame—she'd never comprehend.

-----

It was only a matter of time, really, with Alex and Izzie living in the same house, before she hit on him again. Of course, she avoided him at home, but she knew he was there, and that made her act weird. It made her _think _about him, all the time. So he wasn't surprised when she sidled up to him, at the nurse's station, and asked about his dinner plans. He was gentle in his rejection, and he thought she took it pretty well.

It was funny, because nowadays, he'd look at her, and all he would see was O'Malley. Not that he had anything against the guy, but still—he just couldn't believe she'd _slept _with him. He wasn't jealous or anything, he just didn't get it. For the first time, he had an inkling of what Shepherd's problem had been. It had always struck him as inconceivable: how a man could be married to Addison Montgomery and _not_ enjoy the sex. After all, the woman was _gorgeous_. But Grey had sworn it was so.

Now, face-to-face with the blond former underwear model, he no longer felt an ounce of desire. When he looked, he saw her there, but he saw O'Malley, too. O'Malley, with his chubby little fingers and squat figure, caressing Izzie, _having sex with her_, and Alex was at a loss to separate the images of the two. Even though it wasn't like O'Malley was his best friend. Even though it wasn't like he'd _been _with Izzie, and she'd cheated on him. This, he figured, must've been what had happened to Shepherd. His loyalty to the man's ex-wife meant he trusted that there was another side to the story. But now, even so? He sort of got the guy's point, anyway.

-----

Addison watched the exchange from a distance. She was surprised by the surge of strong dislike for Stevens that had suddenly overtaken her. _You're being ridiculous_, she snapped internally. _Stevens can hit on any man she likes. He's not your property_. But when the blond left Karev standing there alone, she joined him, anyway, and commented.

"Women like that can always have any man they want, with a snap of their fingers. It's the blond thing, I guess." He glanced at her, bemused. What was she getting at? Addison saw his confusion, but she couldn't seem to shut up.

"You know, I dyed my hair blond, once. After Derek left. It was a disaster. I looked like a hooker." She laughed lightly. "The next day Mark dragged me to the nearest salon to have it restored to red. But Stevens pulls off the peroxide very well."

_She's jealous, _he realized. _She thinks Izzie's more attractive than her._ It was such an absurd thought that he almost laughed. As if she didn't _know _how much he lusted after her.

"Stop it," he commanded, but with a voice gloved in sarcasm. The rudeness of the phrase, from him, was just in tune with his usual repertoire of "dude," "sucks," and "ass." He leaned towards her with a little of the old smirk. It wasn't the smirk of the misogynistic brat who'd sabotaged her at every turn, those first weeks on her service, but the teasing, _lilting _smirk that had surfaced when he'd come to like it there. (Before Mark Sloan had arrived and thrown her little kingdom out of balance.)

"Insecurity doesn't suit you, Doc, on the job or off."

Addison rolled her eyes a little, in acknowledgement. What was with that ridiculous petname, she wondered, and a filthy image flitted through her brain, unsought, of Alex Karev with his head thrown back in the throes of passion and his lips curled back, groaning out the endearment. She snorted in self-disgust, and he probably took it as a compliment to his quip, but she wasn't about to enlighten him. No, his ego could congratulate itself on his sharp sense of humor if it wanted. It wouldn't do to feed it the alternative.

-----

It figured, that paying one person back for a favor meant asking for another from somebody else. Alex had been avoiding his crazy housemates for some time. He left early and came home late, sneaking straight into his room whenever possible. Because if he was there? He had to listen to Grey and Shepherd having wild sex, and Izzie would hold him hostage so she could dump on him with her George-related problems.

But today, Alex needed Izzie's help. Because Yang had called him on not paying her back, and he'd sworn he'd pay her tomorrow. So here he was, standing with Izzie in the kitchen. The blond looked at him dubiously. "Have you ever even baked boxed brownies?" Alex shook his head. Izzie sighed.

"Oh well, let's get you started with the basics." And she started showing him how to sift flour.

Baking, as it turned out, wasn't half bad. Not that he'd do it all the time, by himself, mind you. But with a hot chick? It didn't totally suck. Still, hanging out with her, he was pleased to discover that he was really, truly over Izzie. And more pleased still to find out she was totally over him, too. She quizzed him on his time with Sloan, and Alex thought of telling her the guy was an ass, but refrained. The last time he'd questioned her preferences, it hadn't gone well. Eventually she got tired of talking about "McSteamy," and her thoughts turned elsewhere. She gestured at the mess on the counter.

"So, it's really about the babies, huh?" He scanned her face for jealousy. Nothing there—just curiosity. He smirked sheepishly. "Yeah." Izzie's face burst into a goofy grin.

"You do realize that's ridiculously cute, right? I mean, big bad _Alex_ has a thing for babies?!" She fell into a fit of giggles. Alex smacked her with a dishtowel. "Oh, shut up, Iz."

-----

Alex saved a few of the cookies for Addison. When he handed her the thing of Tupperware, his eyes danced with amusement. She looked perplexed. "I baked," he explained. "It was my first time, and probably my last. I had extra, so I figured you should get to taste the rare phenomenon."

"What brought this on?" She was studying the pastries with bemusement and just a little trepidation.

"It's how I bribed Yang to help me study procedures." He shrugged. "Her idea." As he left, he threw out, "Well, anyway, I hope they taste okay."

-----

The cookies had done her in. Addison went in search of Callie, carrying the cookies held away with her, suspended between just the tips of her fingers. (At arms' length from her traitorous and vexing heart.) She found the younger resident scarfing down a Twinkie in the break room.

"Stop eating that sugar-stuffed roll of crap," she instructed her friend. "You're better off having some of these." She held the cookies out. Callie raised her eyebrows and put down the uneaten half of her snack.

"Theesh ah gooth," she said around a mouthful of Oatmeal Raisin, then swallowed. "Where'd they come from?"

"From Karev," Addison replied. Callie almost choked. Reaching for her glass of water, she took a big gulp, then stared down the older woman. "_What_?"

"He baked them. Not for me, for someone else, but… he brought me the extra."

"Well, what do you know, the 'help' has unexpected _depth_."

Addison nodded, sighed, and bowed her head. "It's those lines of deliciousness," she grumbled. "They won't go away. How do I make them go away, Callie?"

But Callie had no wisdom to offer. _She'd _married the 'help' and gotten her heart broken instead.

-----

He'd started bringing her coffee in the mornings. The first time, she'd been startled and stood there gazing at it with confusion.

"I brought _Sloan _coffee," he'd explained, "and he was an ass. You? You never ask. And it seems, like, unfair and all, him getting things you don't, just because you're not also a jerk." She'd blinked, and thanked him. He'd shrugged nonchalantly and left for rounds.

They still argued, of course. He was headstrong and arrogant and prone to temper outbursts. She was patronizing when she knew she was in the right, and her tongue could be quite sharp when she corrected him. They continued having shouting matches in the hallways. But sometimes, waiting out a rant, she felt the urge to kiss him, to shut him up.

-----

When Addison at last recognized her feelings toward him, the knowledge seemed a curse. She was, she had allowed herself to see, at least a little bit in love. And that word _love_ was a constant thorn in her side. Because now, she looked at him, and there was a big pink neon sign above his head, with an arrow and the words, "The Man I Maybe Sort Of Love." It drove her nuts.

Worse yet, it had started to depress her. Which was not okay, because it meant he'd started _hovering_. He never asked her what was wrong. That wasn't his style. But it was like that day after she'd found the panties, when she'd staggered around Seattle Grace in a broken haze, a zip-lock baggie in her purse. He hadn't known what was wrong, then—nobody had. But he'd been gentle with her all the same. _You can have the worst crap in the world happen to you_, he'd said. _And you can get over it. All you gotta do is survive_. She'd spent that day in flashbacks to the night at the brownstone; it had been excruciating. But he'd heard out both her scolding and her wistful musings, without a murmur—he'd stood by her in silent support, and it had helped.

It wasn't helpful now. Because _he _was the problem, and he was everywhere she looked. She desperately needed to clear her head. She'd gone by the NICU earlier, and he'd been in there again, a premie's hand curled around his little finger. She'd been amused, and looked it, so he'd parroted her words back at her: _We all need a little human contact, from time to time._ Human contact. And need. No, she couldn't argue with that at all.

In surgery later that day, Addison found the contact of her side with his debilitating and distracting. She had to ask him to move to the other side of the table, and she'd turned red beneath her mask from the fear that he'd suspect why. Once she had some breathing room, though, she observed his method with not a little pride. His hands were very steady; he was attentive and careful in all his movements. She asked him a tricky question, and he got the answer, spot-on. She was impressed. He _had _been studying with Yang. "Very good, Karev." She let him take over part of the procedure as a reward.

Not being able to stand next to your intern in surgery, though? That was a _major _issue. Addison hadn't a clue what she was going to do about that.

-----

In the end, it became too much for her to stand. The din in her head reached unbearable levels, and Addison felt compelled to take drastic action. Three months after they'd started working together (again), Addison passed her intern in the hallway, grabbed his arm, and dragged him into the nearest supply closet.

"What the—what's wrong, Addison?" Frightened by her haste and her pained expression, Alex didn't even notice that he'd called her by her first name.

"I need your help," she blurted out, no preamble. He watched her expectantly. She sighed. It wasn't supposed to be like this. Her dignity, her authority—everything that gave her the power to _teach _him would be lost if she continued. _Get it together, Addie. This isn't you_. But it had to be done. She simply wasn't strong enough. She couldn't handle it on her own. _Can't you be an adult about this? _She'd been trying, so hard, but the _adult _was precisely the part of her that was causing the concern. So she forged ahead, anyway.

"You have to stop being nice to me," she began. "You have to give me space. You have to try _not _to encourage me—encourage these feelings, this whole big mess." She took a gulp of air. "You have to pull back, because I can't. _I need you to make me like you less_. I need you to help me, to help me _fix _this. Because I can't stop thinking, stop wanting… I just… it has to stop, Alex. It _has _to. But I don't know how to make that happen. I can't do it alone."

A sense of relief at having finally confessed her feelings overwhelmed her. Tears rose in her eyes, and she collapsed on the footstool by the shelves. "I'm so sorry, Alex," she mumbled. "It's completely unfair of me to put this on you—I'm the one in charge, I'm supposed to be able to control this—I'm the one who should be busy helping _you_…."

"Hey—hey there," Alex interrupted her. He crouched down beside her, and his hand found her upper arm, his thumb moving in slow, soothing circles. His mind was racing. He was rapidly coming into a revelation of his own. "It's okay. It's totally fine, alright? Don't worry about it."

"You'll… try to help me, then?" she ventured hopefully, looking up. With those sad, moist eyes appealing to him, with her _begging _for his aid, with her practically _handing_ him her heart on a silver platter—how could he possibly resist? She was asking him to _save her_. And saving women was what Alex did. Even if it meant giving up his one and only chance with her.

Addison's nose and eyes were red, her face was weirdly contorted, and her eyeliner had begun to run. She was a mess. But Alex had never wanted more in his life to draw a woman into his arms and _make love_ to her—in a slow, excruciating, lips-locked-as-we-move, don't-speak-or-I'll-cry embrace. To screw her until he'd made her forget all imaginary troubles. To mark her as his own.

Instead, he leaned forward and pressed his lips against the dampness at her temple, then pulled away. She was trembling. It was ironic, that this should be the moment in which he finally realized that he'd fallen for her. (In a terrifying way.)

"I'll do my best," he promised.

End of Chapter Six.

-----

A/N: Apologies for the egregious sap/clichés (oh my eyes!); hope I didn't make anyone gag _too _much. _Shrugs._ The line about adultery and looking in the mirror is a quasi-quote from some interview with Patrick Dempsey. Obviously, I'm indebted in that last scene to socalwriter's _True Colors_ (minus the happiness which results in the original).

In Chapter Seven, Addison and Alex struggle to maintain their precarious new dynamic. Many thanks, as always, to those who reviewed! You got me through the writing of this exhausting chapter.


	7. Hold the Balance

Not mine. T/PG-13. Post-3x18. Addison and Alex grapple with professional aspirations and personal yearnings. Ongoing series. Mostly Addison/Alex with references to Addison/Mark and Addison/Derek.

Chapter Seven. "Hold the Balance." Alex and Addison struggle to maintain their precarious new dynamic.

-----

_A few months or a year ago_, Alex mused, _that closet encounter would have ended differently_.

The Alex Karev of a few months ago might have laughed in his mentor's face, told her she was delusional for thinking she had a chance in the first place. _You're worried about nothing_, he might have said, _because it's not like I'd sleep with you anyway_. The Alex Karev of a year ago, however, would probably have thought, _Dude, she's hot, she's hot for me—we're in a closet_. Then he would have slammed her into the shelves and hiked up her designer skirt and put his fingers to decidedly _non-_clinical gynecological uses.

Or he might have tried the honesty route. He might have said "me, too." He might have told her that because they both felt that way about each other, they should be together. Fought with her until she agreed. Explained that things between them should and would be _simple_.

But simple wasn't possible for him anymore. Because Alex had been _Addison_'_s _Alex for three months now, and in that time, he'd learned a thing or two about black-and-white. Namely, that it didn't exist. And, that blunt Honesty wasn't always the means to Truth. Well, that was something she'd been trying to teach him all along, but he thought he finally _got _it, now. He'd come a long way from that incident with the Wards—_god_, it was embarrassing to remember how he'd acted then. He wondered if she remembered, hell, he knew she did. But he wondered if she could tell that he was different, now. And if she knew she was the reason why.

Since last night, she'd been on his mind non-stop. The way she'd _looked _at him. The euphoria of realizing she loved him. The surprise of discovering he loved her. The horror of acknowledging that she was right, and that none of those things mattered—because _they _would never happen. No, the Alex of a year ago wouldn't have understood that. But the Alex he was now got it, really got it… and really wished he didn't. Being a mature "adult," he decided, _sucked_.

But she'd gone and made him one, and so here he was, racking his brains for how to fulfill his promise. At the time it had seemed so simple—of course he had only to _decide _to stop letting her love him, and it would go away. This morning, though, away from the intoxicating influence of her trust in him, he didn't have the first clue of where to start.

-----

Now that she'd spoken, Addison didn't remember the painful effort of repression; she only felt that she ought to have held her peace. She would, she was convinced, have managed it somehow. But now her dignity was gone, and for what—what could he possibly do to make it better? And moreover, did she really want him to?

But there had been, she dared to hope, a hint of love in his eyes—for a moment, when he'd leaned over to kiss the side of her face. And that had thrilled her. He had been so gentle, _tender_-sounding, when he'd promised her he'd help. Still, a part of her that she tried to subdue was disappointed by his reaction. It was hard to hope for much, when you'd confessed your love and the object hadn't so much as _kissed_ you. (On the lips. The other didn't count.) _Was that what I hoped for_, she wondered_, was that why I told him? _Had she secretly wanted him to refuse to help? To make his move, seduce her there and then, instead?

But that was nonsense. She was good with their arrangement. And she was happy, at least, in the confidence that he felt what she did back. Here, at least, was unconsummated but not _unrequited _love. Already that was better than her final years with Derek.

-----

When they met, it was awkwardness all around. The last time this had happened, Alex had lied to himself—convinced himself he wasn't interested—and pulled her aside for a skewering in the supply closet. But this time? They'd just come from there, first of all (the dramatic gesture lost its flair in repetition). More importantly, though, he was no longer in a state of denial. And Alex Karev didn't speak intentional lies. So telling her he wasn't interested wasn't an option now.

He still remembered that awful week after she'd kissed him. When she wouldn't talk to him, look at him, _see _him. It had bothered him more than he was comfortable with, so he'd gone ahead and nipped it in the bud. This situation—what she'd asked for, was for him to do the same again, save her like he had last time, from herself. But he couldn't. Not now.

He hadn't been _trying _to make her fall in love with him. (He didn't think.) In retrospect, he'd probably loved her all along. It was hard, looking back, to justify some of his actions any other way. (He had brought her cookies. _What kind of self-respecting bad boy _did _that?!_) But how had he hid from it so long?

They avoided eye contact for the first hour, and conversation was stilted. They tripped and shuffled in the common space. She stuttered. He blushed. Things were worse than ever before. But finally, an emergency C-section thrust them into a flurry of activity, and then they didn't have time to think or stress or feel uncomfortable anymore. They were a team, and their well-practiced surgical routine was fast and fluid.

By the end of the day, they were Karev-and-Dr.-Montgomery again, working smoothly side-by-side. If there was an aftereffect, it was the sense of shared regret that vibrated in the space between them. But that only brought them closer, somehow.

-----

And then one day, just like that, Alex was no longer an intern. Addison congratulated him on his advancement to first-year residency by allowing him to operate on the smallest of the Khyber triplets. He performed the advanced epidural analgesia procedure in OR1 before an audience of his peers and superiors. They were all impressed, in spite of themselves. Everyone said it was beautifully done, and Sloan even complimented him on the delicacy of his closing stitches.

Two days later the baby caught a resistant strain of pneumonia, developed complications, and died.

Afterwards, Addison found him in the tunnel, forehead leaned against the grimy wall, fists thudding against the hard surface. (Gently—his hands, though screw-ups, were still valuable.) She approached him but paused first, just a foot away. Then she rested her cheek on the back of his right shoulder and pressed her body up against his, her bare arms lightly encircling his waist. He didn't move for several seconds, then his breathing hitched and the heaving sobs came soundlessly.

When it was over, she took a step back and stood behind him. He didn't turn around.

"I'm not God," she said, "and neither are you. Take a half-hour if you need it, but when you're through, I've got an abdominal distention case for you." She walked off, leaving him to recover in private.

-----

It got to the point where Alex couldn't stand Izzie or Meredith any longer. Whatever, he liked them both well enough, but all the time? Was too much. He needed some space of his own. Besides, he couldn't imagine having sex with Izzie next door. It would be weird, and possibly cruel as well. And he'd dearly like to have sex again, sometime in the near future, please. (He didn't specify, in his mind, with whom.) So he found an apartment and moved out.

It was just as well. A few days later, Callie filed for divorce. George was kicked out of his thousands-a-week hotel room, and he moved back into the house.

-----

Sometimes, Addison drove him nuts. A single woman seven months' pregnant gave birth to a stillborn baby. The nurses left her to cry in private; when they returned they found her wrists slit and the sheets bathed in blood. Addison's face when she walked in was an unflinching mask. She gave calm instructions to Olivia, called up Psych, and left to have her lunch.

But Alex had been watching her hands, and seen them tremor. She was so professional, sometimes, that he wanted to grab her by the arms and shake her. Tell her, _loosen up_. Shock her into dropping that perfect façade. Demand that she come to him for help.

-----

Like Addison, Callie had a thing for repeat performances. _This was why they were friends_. So when George moved out of her hotel room, her very next action was to invite Mark Sloan in. She felt guilty the next morning, and apologized to her friend. Addison assured her there was nothing to apologize for, that she was happy for the both of them. They didn't date, but they screwed passionately and often. Both were saying good-bye to unrealistic dreams. It worked, for them.

When Alex heard that Sloan was doing Callie, he went looking for Sloan's ex. "Hey," he said when he found her, "I heard." She didn't have to ask what. "You okay?" She nodded. He searched her face and was satisfied; she wasn't jealous. For some unnamed reason, this was a relief to him.

-----

They planned the logistics of a Cesarean for partially-conjoined twins over lunch. When Addison had finished her salad, Alex moved his chocolate pudding to her tray, without prompting. He told her about the neighbors at his new apartment. She asked his opinion on the terms of the lease for her new house. From the corner of her eye, Addison saw Bailey's other (former) interns whispering and pointing.

"Oh, for God's sake," she muttered.

"What?" Alex asked, before following her glance to his friends' table. "Oh." He felt a bit of annoyance… and also a twinge of embarrassment. "They're just projecting, you know," he explained. "None of them—I mean, they're all sleeping with their bosses, so it's hard for them to _get _it. They don't understand… us. What this is; what we have."

She nodded. He was right, she knew. It still pissed her off, though.

-----

Karev had insulted his attending in front of a patient. He'd questioned her judgment. _Again._ He was 90 percent wrong and a tiny part right and the latter bothered her to no end. She yelled at him, he promised not to repeat the offence, and she changed her plan of treatment. Slightly. (He pretended not to notice that.)

There were times when Addison wanted to kill her resident. Or send him to work for Derek as a form of punishment… for them both. Or slam him against the nearest wall and just have her Satanic, adulterously whorish way with him. Today was one of those times.

-----

Even the best screwed up, sometimes. And Addison was running on four hours of fitful sleep—she'd spent them in lurid dreams and thwarted lust. (She suspected she was ovulating.) But today was _not _a day for second-best, and she'd flunked the test. Her voice was hoarse when she called out time of death on the patient and three of her quadruplets.

Addison had never liked failure. But failing in front of Alex, seeing her own disappointment reflected in _his_ eyes—that was unbearable. She hadn't known how much she relied upon his good opinion. But there it was, and she had lost it now. Nevermind the four deaths now added to her account.

When Karev had finished filling out the dismal chart results, he went by her office to drop them off. She was standing faced towards the window. But her eyes were on her held-out hands. He put the chart down and walked up to her. Taking one of her hands in his own, he traced the strong lines of muscle with his index finger.

"Yesterday," he told her, "these were amazing hands." He paused and checked to see if she was watching him. She was. "And they'll be amazing hands again, tomorrow."

He released his hold on her, and they stood in silence.

-----

Eventually, the wanting of each other faded to a dull ache in the background. They'd almost gotten used to each others' physical presences. She could feel his arm brush hers in surgery almost without shuddering. When she read chart-work over his shoulder, he could feel her hair sweep his shoulder, stray strands glancing the side of his neck, and not hear his voice quaver. They were fine. Everything would be fine.

Alex felt he was getting a handle on things at last. He'd matured, he felt, and finally knew how to balance life and work. They were separate things, and he'd learned to deal with that. Meanwhile, Addison was content. He was there, that was what mattered. She could be happy just like this. It was enough, she decided. What they had—it was enough for her. It _had _to be. Karev made a good friend, and she was lucky to have him in her life. In whatever capacity.

But now it was time to meet Karev and hear his daily report. By some sixth sense, Addison paused before the threshold of the NICU. Voices murmured quietly inside. She heard a low female giggle, then Alex's voice in reply. "I'll pick you up around 7, then?" More soft laughter.

The pale, pretty pediatrics nurse smiled at Addison as she passed her on her way out into the hall. Addison's lungs had stopped cooperating. It was a few long seconds before she could move again. _It's what I asked him to do_, she admonished herself. But it didn't matter. If anything, the fact that it was her own damned fault only made it that much worse. She caught a glimpse of him as the door swung shut. Standing there like he _belonged_—at ease, in charge. A doctor come into his own, at last. A man planning a date with a pretty girl. He was smiling softly; he was content. _He had moved on_. (Her conscience prompted, _and so should you_.) Her stomach split in two.

She forced a deep breath, gathered her wits, and entered the room.

End of Chapter Seven.

-----

A/N: I know, I know. Give me a couple more chapters to get to a better place—then we'll be on the home stretch, folks. Next chapter, Alex _grows a spine_. Finally.

Thank you all for your lovely, incredibly _thoughtful_ reviews! You are such a wonderful group of readers.


	8. Make the Rules Up

Not mine. T/PG-13. Post-3x18. Addison and Alex grapple with professional aspirations and personal yearnings. Ongoing series. Mostly Addison/Alex with references to Addison/Mark and Addison/Derek.

Chapter Eight. "Make the Rules Up." Alex grows a spine. (Somewhat… fluffy. Oops.)

-----

Alex Karev was totally over his silly little crush on his mentor. Okay, so she was still hot, but _dude_. Talk about an emotional minefield. The woman was a wreck. And there were always plenty of sexy chicks out there with no baggage: they welcomed him with lusty smiles, happy to let him into their arms for the night. So he did what any self-respecting male would do—he accepted their kindness.

In matters of the heart, he tended towards one step forward, two steps back. His brief flashes of emotional clarity tended to fade quickly, and he generally had to be surprised into acknowledging "feelings" of any kind. Kissing Izzie, after third-person Frank's prodding, had been a surprise to him. Loving Addison, in that moment in the linen room—that had caught him off-guard, too. A few days after his little declaration to himself, "love" had been downgraded to "a crush," and by the time he'd asked the pediatrics nurse out he figured he was over the redhead, entirely. It had been just lust, after all.

Life proceeded. And it was pretty good, this way.

-----

In her year-plus of mentoring Alex, Addison hadn't seriously dated anyone. She told herself it was because she was listening to Miranda and learning to define herself _without _a man.

She didn't ask why the men who approached her never seemed to measure up, why she couldn't get past that attraction stage and into infatuation. She'd always been, at heart—past sexual behavior notwithstanding—a one-man sort of woman. (She'd been married to Dr. Derek "McDreamy" Shepherd with the perfect hair and melted-butter smile; she was allowed to measure the men she met against high standards.) She didn't ask why she went to extraordinary lengths to conceal those dates, few and far in between though they were, from the knowledge of those she worked with. (Surely the Seattle Grace rumor mill was cause enough for paranoia.) She didn't ask how she'd managed to survive for so long with so little sex, either—she was, as she would have put it in her teenage years, now over-forty and _an old woman_ and thus no longer needed sex. (Oh if only it were so.)

Working with her resident Karev was still a pleasure. Sometimes, just being around him was enough to make her warm inside. Standing side-by-side in the OR, feeling his arm brush her waist as he handled the suction, Addison would experience brief moments of pure contentment. Other times it was torture, as when she would watch him head off on yet another date with yet another bubbly nurse. Then, she wanted nothing more than to be rid of him, once and for all.

-----

No one was really shocked when Sloan cheated on Callie. Not even Callie herself. (Though she and Addison still had a good alcoholic binge, afterward.) But that he'd slept with _Izzie_—well, that had made more than a few eyes roll. Addison was thankful once more that she'd escaped that trap. Alex was grateful that he'd long gotten over the blond. Now, in their third year of the program, Alex was the only one of Bailey's Fatal Five who _hadn't_ slept with a superior. He found it amusing and somewhat novel to be occupying the higher moral ground.

-----

One day in surgery, Addison asked Alex a question, and he screwed up the answer. It should have been an easy one. Disappointment made her peevish, and she snapped at him. For the rest of the procedure, he glared at her from across the operating table, where he waited, having been relieved of serious duties. They scrubbed out in silence and he disappeared.

Passing by the waiting room on the obstetrics floor, later, Addison came to a sudden halt. Her resident was poring over medical texts on the coffee table, brow furrowed in fierce concentration. She felt a twinge of guilt; perhaps she'd been too hard on him, earlier. She sat down next to him and offered, "It's analogous to a bypass procedure; the principles are the same. You weren't supposed to be familiar with the procedure itself; it's too rare. But you can extrapolate from similar cases. I assumed you'd be able to figure it out." She paused. "But my reaction might have been a _little_ harsh."

He snapped his head up to glare at her. Shutting the texts with a thud, he gathered them and rose.

"Stop apologizing for having _standards_," he spat out. "I'm not fragile, Addison," the familiar address slipped out unnoticed in his aggravation. "I can take it. Don't _patronize_ me, alright?" He sighed. "Look, I can handle intellectual frustration just fine. But you going soft on me? _That _pisses me off."

She blinked and nodded with a mixture of annoyance (_did he have to be so rude_?) and grudging respect. She'd always found a touch of arrogance rather alluring. Her eyes followed his form as he stalked off.

-----

Callie was a great friend: warm, supportive, and fun. But she also had no discretion whatsoever. It wasn't really a surprise, then, when Miranda brought the subject up. They were 'sucking martinis' at Joe's—with a little more moderation than on some previous occasions, though. "So," the Nazi drawled, casually, "You and Karev making my failure as a teacher complete now?" Addison nearly spit out her olive.

"No!" she sputtered. "I mean… fine, at one point it looked like it might be an issue, but we talked it over and agreed to keep things professional. For the sake of everyone involved." She could state it almost without regret, now. Miranda raised an eyebrow at her; apparently her tone wasn't as convincing as she'd hoped.

"I know I said you didn't need a man to define you, Addison," she mused, "but I begin to think you _might_ need one just to keep you from running after the ones you shouldn't." Addison politely declined the offer of a fix-up with a divorced friend of Tucker's.

-----

Addison's new house had not been a success. She was glad she'd taken Karev's advice and kept the lease term short. Making new inquiries, she found that real estate agents in Seattle were strangely patronizing to single women. For some reason they assumed she'd be an easy mark. (In New York, they'd understood that women like Addison were where the money was: and that such women were typically smart.) When Addison had narrowed her choices down to just a handful, she asked Karev to come along and have a look. (Or maybe he had offered. It was hard to tell.) Addison had almost laughed at the broker's change in attitude, with him present, but she tamped down the smirk long enough to sign some paperwork. She figured her tastes and Karev's were on opposite ends, so if they both agreed, the place couldn't be all that bad.

"Have your stuff packed and ready to move Saturday at noon." Karev's gestures of kindness were often like this—preemptory, almost rude. She thanked him and he shrugged it off, as usual. When he showed up that weekend with his beat-up Ford, he'd brought O'Malley as well. The two of them made quick work of her boxes. (O'Malley still looked sheepish and a little scared of her.) Afterwards, she took the two of them out for pizza to show her gratitude.

The next day, Karev came by again to see if he could help unpack. She'd been hard at work, and a corner of the living room already looked comfortable and lived-in. He didn't ask where to start; he simply opened a box of kitchenware and started filling up the nearest cabinet. "This place suits you better, Doc," he noted. She nodded and looked out the window at the cityscape, with satisfaction.

"I don't know what I was thinking before," she observed. "I'm a city girl—always have been. The house in the suburbs… that would've been Derek's dream." She rolled her eyes a little. "I guess I stayed in that trailer a little too long."

-----

Alex Karev was the new model resident. He was the standard to which all others were held. Other attendings looked on in envy as they observed his dedication to his specialty—and to his mentor. No one could deny that he worked hard, or that he got results.

Marriage had made Cristina Yang soft. Burke teased her that she'd be working harder if he hadn't slept with her. Then, he said, she'd be eager to earn his approval—like Karev. Sexual tension often did that. Everyone agreed: Karev was Dr. Montgomery's bitch. Funnily enough, he was actually sort of proud of it.

-----

Then the unthinkable happened. Izzie Stevens and Mark Sloan announced their engagement. Callie fell apart, and Addison spent the next few days being pulled aside at random for sob fests in empty exam rooms. It was a whirlwind romance, but the prognostics looked good. They would have disgustingly beautiful babies.

When she wasn't tending to Callie's heart, Addison wondered a little, about her own. And Alex's. Both were a little taken aback, on the whole. _That could have been me_, they thought. The sex had been one thing; marriage was different, somehow. But it was a moot point. The day the news broke, Alex and Addison shared a secretive, slightly-pained smile; each knew that the other knew how both felt. They were there for each other, in their own way. It was just a small twinge of loss, but it was made better by the other's empathy.

-----

That year, Addison took Karev with her to the annual Pediatric Surgeons Association's conference in Maryland. He delivered a brief paper on a special case of conjoined twins from last year. It was a modest success—an excellent outcome for his first turn at the podium. When Addison finished her own talk, a heckler in the audience led her through a series of provocative but nonsensical questions. She patiently responded to each in turn, but when the questioner began to attack her past work, Alex couldn't sit still any longer. He jumped up and into the fray. His cutting defense of her was medically sound—it was what she would have said if he hadn't interrupted—but his fury in the delivery was what made the other man shut up. Addison didn't know if she was more pleased with his firm grasp of the medical knowledge, or the passion behind his tirade's execution. Leaping to protect her professional reputation—well, it wasn't flowers or candy or a serenade under the moon, but it was something. And she may have smiled at him afterwards with just a _little_ more fondness, than before.

Their hotel rooms were adjoined. The beds were against the same wall. As Alex drifted in an uneasy state of half-consciousness, he imagined what the red-haired doctor in the next room would wear to bed. Addison lay awake, painfully aware of how near he was, on the other side of the partition. She wondered if he was thinking of her as well.

-----

The rumor spread like wildfire: McDreamy and Meredith had split up. They'd been seen screaming at each other the day before, and they'd arrived to work separately in the morning. When the scrub nurses had passed the news on to Addison, she'd stopped breathing for a moment. Then she was furious with herself, for letting silly rumors get to her. There was no telling if it were true. And even if it was, it didn't affect her, anyhow.

Or it shouldn't. Addison hated that her heart still leapt with a tiny tremor of hope when it first heard that Derek might now be free. She was past all that; she was over him. But the initial reaction remained. She was edgy for the rest of the day.

Alex noticed the nervousness. He correctly assigned the cause, but he overestimated its importance. His first impulse, on hearing the report, was to say something nasty—as he had with Denny. But he'd learned his lesson there. No, he was going to be _supportive_. Because Derek was an ass, and the last thing he wanted to do was send Addison running back into the bastard's arms, by being a jerk himself. (It was the kind of thing she would do.) Derek wasn't a wife-beater, as far as Alex knew, but the man was emotionally abusive, no question. You only had to look at the way he messed with Meredith's head, to get that. So he made a point of being extra nice to Addison that day.

-----

In the end, it was the threat of Shepherd's return that did it. Watching Addison's reaction to the news of the man's newly-acquired bachelorhood, Alex felt a sharp pang of jealousy that took him entirely by surprise. (And left him temporarily unable to breathe.) He brushed it away, as mere protectiveness. After all, the jerk had done a real number on her. As her friend, it was only natural that he didn't want to see her hurt like that again. But then he walked by the nurse's station and saw her, in the little room behind the desk—with none other than the man himself. Derek "McDreamy" Shepherd. M.D. Asshole.

He was _leaning _into her, the bastard, like he always did. In her space, with his smarmy smile and his floppy hair and his unexplainable charm. Alex's spine stiffened. _Well, we _do _move fast._ She said something and reached out to touch her ex-husband's face. He was smiling at her. Then his head bowed and he murmured something, but Alex couldn't hear and couldn't read lips. Then Shepherd chucked her under the chin and pressed a kiss against her forehead. She gestured a good-bye, and left. Alex caught a whiff of her familiar scent as she swept by him without a second glance.

He felt the sudden urge to punch something: preferably something living, hair-sprayed, and male. Because, _dude_, a world where men like that could keep women like her wrapped around their pinky fingers? That world was _seriously _unfair. The only man, he thought, who could _begin _to hope to deserve her was… well, was Alex himself.

And there it was, with all the subtlety and grace of a ten-wheeler at 75 miles an hour. Fate's _second_ attempt to clue him in. He was in love with Addison Montgomery: impossibly, incurably, _pathetically_ in love.

And he wasn't about to forget it this time. Really, he could have slapped himself. But whether for the fact that he'd been so clueless, or for loving her at all—that he couldn't tell. And _why?_ Why this terrible, totally unhelpful fixation? Of all the women to develop a thing for, she was the one who would get him in the most trouble. To be sure, she had great legs, and a great rack. (If he was perfectly honest, the rack was a notch or two below Izzie's. Still great, though.) And the red hair? Definitely hot. But she was also _older_, and anal-retentive, and bad-tempered, and closed-off, and self-absorbed, and bossy… and she gave him crap _all the f---ing time_. And even if she _had _been interested, once, he'd given her plenty of time to get over it, and he hadn't really seen signs of it since, and, well, he'd been a jerk a lot, and she probably hated him, and now there was Shepherd back in the game again, and _oh, hell._ He was screwed.

There really was no getting around it. _He loved her_. And he wanted her for himself. To hell with ethics, his profession, and the rumor mill. But what to do about it? Now, he grumbled to himself, he'd probably need a plan of action. Or something. (_Again with the planning ahead._ _God, she really _was _rubbing off on him._)

-----

Neither Alex nor Addison witnessed the Dream Couple's reconciliation. After parting ways with Addison, Derek approached Meredith in the MRI control room. He suspected he might have jumped to conclusions; he desperately hoped that he had. Hoarsely, he asked straight out, "Where _were_ you last night?" Meredith muttered something about staying at Cristina's. "Don't lie to me," he said. "I talked to Joe—he saw you leave with some 'accountant guy.' What the hell did you think you were doing, Meredith?"

Her chin quivered. She turned toward him a face with brimming eyes. "I went with him," she admitted, "but then I couldn't do it. I thought I could; I thought I could forget about you. But then I was in his apartment, and I just _couldn't_. I couldn't sleep with him." Her voice broke on "sleep" and she sobbed openly. "I'm so sorry—so, so sorry Derek." _She hadn't slept with him. _The tears were too much; Derek sighed and relented.

"I'm a prize idiot," he offered. An olive branch. She responded in her customary high-pitched quaver: "Me too. Idiotic," a tilt of her head, "but still a prize, right?" Gruffly, he demanded, "Come here," and drew her into his arms.

-----

Alex had always been a risk-taker. In the past, he'd leapt into a lot of situations pig-headedly, without worrying much about what came after. Still, these last couple of years, he'd learned a lot from Addison about assessing consequences. He was a far more careful person today because of it. But looking at the case at hand, he came to some clear conclusions. Because in this situation, the consequences of doing nothing? Included seeing Addison go off _with another man_. And with his newfound ability to weigh potential results and justify his decision-making process, Alex determined _that_ to be an unacceptable outcome.

With Izzie, he'd been a backseat driver. She'd told him to take off his pants, so to speak. And there, they were equals (in-so-far as he was worthy of blond underwear models). With Addison, it was something else entirely. She was the boss of him. And he suspected that meant, if he wanted there to be a "them" in the future, he'd have to be the one to take charge. The one lapse at Joe's aside, she was entirely too conscientious and reflective to make the move. He knew she had a tendency to think of him as a babe in the woods (it annoyed him to no end). In this, he figured he'd have take advantage—so that she'd know that she wasn't the one doing so. He'd have to show her that he was a _man_, when they were outside their place of work.

Besides, daring was the flip side of pig-headed. And _daring_… that had always been a strength of his. Addison was brilliant and very rational, but at the end of the day, Alex suspected he could show her a thing or two about taking leaps. Because free-fall? Could be exhilarating….

A surge of purposefulness—the same feeling of empowerment that had come over him the day he'd dipped Izzie in the bar—took over him now. It was _time _for what Frank would call a "grand gesture." And Alex thought he knew exactly what he had to say and do. He strode off in pursuit of her.

-----

After her draining talk with Derek, Addison slipped into her office with relief. Here, she could hide. Here, there would be no ex-husbands for whom she maybe still had feelings asking her advice on how to make up with their cheating girlfriends. She exhaled. _Work_. That was what she needed. She was bent over by the file cabinet, pulling out a file on a case of hyperbilirubinemia, when the door of her office opened and Karev stalked in without knocking. She let go of the file and stood, prepared to lecture him on proper etiquette, when he slammed the door and locked it. He walked up to her with a look she could only call _manic_ in his eye.

And then she felt her back hit the wall and there were rough, insistent fingers in her hair and he was _kissing _her and _oh dear god don't please yes oh—and ah._ She was frozen in his arms for a second while her brain kicked into overdrive, a cacophony of dissenting voices wreaking havoc on her mind. Then her eyes slid shut, her spine melted, and she was leaning into him, letting his lips seize hers, parting them to grant him better access, and _then_, before she could gain control of her movements… she was kissing him back. Because every cell in her body concurred—_this was right_. So her hands crept up between them to grip his shoulders for balance, and her legs spread open to make room for his. And his tongue slid against hers and their noses bumped and his stubble scraped her chin and then it had been forever and a day since she'd last breathed.

When he finally released her mouth, he stayed leaning in, his forehead and nose resting against her own, his shaky breath mingling with her gasps. His hands had found their way down to her waist, and his lower half, flush against hers, was making an offer it was hard to ignore.

The protest was on the tip of her tongue but the air she needed to voice it had abandoned her.

Before she could recover, he was groaning into the inch between them: "Sleep with me to _save_ my career."

"_What?_" A half-laugh, half-shriek burst from Addison at the absurdity of the demand. She shoved him off her and put some space between them.

"You care about my future, right? I mean, you want me to succeed," Alex insisted. _Of course she did. Her field was where he belonged. But what on earth—?_ "So you think that my professional reputation will be ruined if we get together. Well, guess what? I can't work like this. I can't work with you if I'm always thinking about what might have been. It's too distracting. If it keeps up, I'm going to have to stop working with you. And I can't _not _work with you—that would be giving up every one of my ambitions. So this thing where we do nothing? _That's_ killing my career." She blinked at him in astonishment.

"We're fully-grown adults, Addison. I _know _I can handle balancing work and life, and I'm pretty sure you can too. Why don't we just give it a try?"

He spoke with assurance. His eyes were filled with affection, hope, and desire. It felt like ages since a man had looked at her that way. But _no, this is crazy, I shouldn't even be—_

He placed his fingers on her lips. "Don't say no—not just yet. Take some time. Get back to me when you _know_." He paused, then added for good measure, "_I_ did it when you asked me to." She stared at him mutely.

"You don't actually," he grinned sheepishly, "have to have sex with me, if you don't want to. We won't do anything you're not sure about. We'll just… have dinner. If at the end of the evening, it still feels wrong to you, we'll write it off as a minor mistake, a dinner between friends that could have but didn't become more. And we'll be okay. I promise. But just—think about it, alright?"

His lips fluttered over hers for a split second and his fingers gently grazed her cheek. "No pressure. Take your time." Then he was gone. Addison slid to the floor and dropped her head into her hands.

End of Chapter Eight.

-----

A/N: Well, eight down, five to go. In Chapter Nine, Addison debates the merits of Alex's proposal.

Thanks so much, again, for your incredible support and feedback—in addition to getting a feel for which things actually end up working, I'm also _learning_ stuff about the characters from your reviews. It's wonderful!


	9. The Burning of Uncertainty

Not mine. T/PG-13. Post-3x18. Addison and Alex grapple with professional aspirations and personal yearnings. Ongoing series. Mostly Addison/Alex with references to Addison/Mark and Addison/Derek.

Chapter Nine. "The Burning of Uncertainty." Addison debates the merits of Alex's proposal. (Heavy on the "personal," I'm afraid.)

-----

Constant proximity had worn them down. Each had experienced a single moment in which they _realized_ how they felt, but the feelings had been there all along. They had started with lust. They were both good people. Neither had someone else. And they saw each other ten hours a day. After three years of the same, it might have been _possible _for their hearts to remain free… but it was highly unlikely. Maybe they weren't meant-to-be—but there they were, anyway. As the fount-of-wisdom Hannibal Lecter would say, _we begin by coveting what we see every day._

Not that either of them had desires quite so kinky as that sage's. (If Alex occasionally had the weird bondage dream, he'd never tried it in real life. And Addison counted herself lucky if her fantasy lovers remembered foreplay.) Nor were they starry-eyed adolescents who fell for each other through metaphor: it was possible that each knew the flaws of the other even better than their own. (And both were egoists well-stocked in self-loathing.) Love or not, the friction between them persisted: in both its sexual and simply-irritating forms.

Really, it was about mutual dependence, and their commitment to it. They knew each others' weak spots but chose not to repair the walls. (Because everyone needed to be noticed from time to time.)

-----

For several minutes after Alex left her office, Addison didn't move. Her lips still tingled from their last contact with Karev's. She was afraid even to _swallow_—and risk losing the taste of him. _Had that really happened?_ It seemed absurd, almost unrealistic. It was something out of a fluffy romantic comedy: with characters whose hair never moved and whose kisses always hit the mark (no trouble with the noses). And Karev—Alex—_Karev_, well, that speech of his had come out of nowhere. He'd never struck her as the sappy type before, but those words? That look? That _touch_? Made her heart palpitate with hope entirely against her will. _Oh_, but it had been a long, long time.

She'd never been the sort to fall in love at first sight. Derek had certainly had his work cut out for him, when he'd first begun pursuing her. And Mark? Well, that was the product of more than a decade of flirtation and the occasional, unexpectedly serious conversation here and there. Both were objectively gorgeous men (as was Karev), but that alone had only ever stirred her below the belt. Feelings, for her, took time. But she'd had plenty of time with Karev—all day, every day for nearly three years—and he'd taken root in her heart for awhile now. (_Oh, dear, that made her heart dirt and him some form of weed, didn't it._) In any event, she'd come to… care about him, at least. And that made the kissing a problem.

_Ah, yes. Problem._ Finally, her wits had returned. The exhilaration of the moment had slowly subsided, and in its place was a jumble of fears and speculations. If she told him, "no," what would happen to their working relationship? If she told him, "yes"—but no, she couldn't possibly tell him "yes." Or could she? And again, Addison wanted to laugh at the ridiculousness of her situation. Alex Karev, asking her on a date, giving her time to think about it, _planning_ romance? It was as though they'd stepped into a Victorian novel and she was some cloistered virgin awaiting missives from a respectfully distant suitor. She didn't see Karev as the planning type. No, he was sudden, fast, and rough liaisons in on-call rooms. He was unexpected kisses and gruff signs of affection without flowery words. He was _surprise_.

She, however, _was_ a planner. She'd never been good with spontaneity when sober. The over-analyzing, the obsession with all possible consequences—that was hers. She supposed he'd caught it from her, somehow.

-----

Mornings-after had never been Alex's strong suit. He'd acted nonchalant at the time, but he was on pins and needles waiting for Addison's answer. He didn't really know where those last words had come from—probably lines dredged up from bad romance films he'd been dragged to by ex-girlfriends. "No pressure"? Like hell. At the moment he felt nothing _but _pressure; well, nothing but that and an overwhelming sense of, _d'oh! _(Sometimes, Homer was the only way to go.) Because the mad frenzy had left him, and now he remembered, with agonizing clarity, the four-hundred-and-one reasons why he wasn't supposed to do what he'd done the day before.

Number one on his list of fears? Was the prediction that she'd go into hiding, now. Because, _dude_, that was her M.O. And that would kill him. 'Cause he'd hoped they were past that stage; he thought they were really _friends _now. Sure, she was still his teacher and his boss, at work, but he'd been there for her on practically everything else for some time. She had Torres and Bailey, he supposed, but they were "lunch date" friends. He was the _default_. When they pulled off a great surgery? Every other time, _he_ bought the beers. When she was moody or down, he brought by juju. Hell, when her fuse at home blew and she couldn't screw in the replacement, she'd called him up. (He'd had to promise not to tell a soul—the female technological incompetence thing embarrassed her.)

And, he guessed, she'd been there for him, too. His sister got married to some broker, in New York City, and he went to the wedding. He'd been dreading the confrontation with his mother, who had never really forgiven him for the Incident with His Dad. (It turned out that she'd rather lose her son than that asshole.) He mentioned it to Addison in passing while they were double-checking charts. She surprised him with the offer of free housing… and her company, if he wanted it. He surprised himself, by accepting.

The brownstone was imposing. He had thought her silly for not selling it, but standing _in_ it, he got at last why it was hard. She hadn't been back since Seattle, it seemed, and he wasn't sure if his presence was a hindrance or a help. It was unnerving, how she tiptoed like a ghost along its passages. She paused especially long before the stairs. She didn't speak of it, and he didn't ask.

That first night, around 4 a.m., he heard the master bedroom door creak open. Then she was sneaking into his room, clad in plain, unsexy cotton pajamas. _Well that answers that_, he thought, and pretended to be asleep. The bed dipped as she crawled in on the other side. They didn't touch. In the morning, by the time he woke up, she was already gone.

When they made their entrance at the wedding, all were suitably impressed. He introduced her as "my friend, Addison." She was glamour and grace personified: pearl earrings, Chanel scent, and cashmere clothes. His mom was awestruck, and she looked at him with new respect. His sister grinned impishly every time she caught his eye. Though terrified of dancing, he even stumbled through a few waltzes, and one of them was with her. (She beamed when he asked her.) The day went unexpectedly well.

As their plane touched down in Seattle, Alex turned to her and said, "hey—thanks." She sighed and responded simply, "Likewise."

And now, Alex stood to lose all of that. For _sex_. Man, but that was stupid. He sucked at life, he really did.

-----

After Alex finished rounding on Addison's patients, he went in search of her. His feet dragged, a little. Then he saw her, their eyes met, and he _knew_. It was all up. She'd made up her mind, and it wasn't good. Her greeting was a lot stiffer than usual. As he reported on the status of her patients, he watched her face attentively. It was expressionless—too expressionless. _It didn't move._ It was the face of a woman who had bad news to give, but hadn't figured out quite how to phrase it. His heart sank. _Well, fine, then. _And his brain went to work—how could he get to the point first? Alex hated rejections. He preempted them every chance he got. But he was at a loss for how to get out of this one. Backing down hadn't been part of his plan, yesterday. And he hadn't left himself any loopholes.

-----

When Alex found himself alone with Grey at the nurse's station, he was seized by an unhealthy confessional impulse. Grey and him, well, they'd always had a sort of bond. A we're-both-screwed-up-and-get-each-other connection. So a few minutes after they'd exchanged nods and gone back to focusing on work, he found himself leaning over and muttering to her:

"So, what gives with Shepherd, huh? He's your teacher—hell, your _teacher's_ teacher—so how come he was all fine with trying to get you to sleep with him, anyway?" Her eyes widened and she cocked her head at him.

"I… I don't know, really. I mean, I had a problem with it at first, you know? But he was just so, well, _persistent_. So I figured, whatever, right?" Her eyes narrowed. "Why do you ask?" He felt himself turning red. "Nothing, dude, forget it."

She raised her eyebrows at him and turned back to her chart. Half a minute more, and he burst out, "It's just—she's so f---ing _honorable_, all the damned time. And I _know _it could work, but she won't let us try, and it's pissing me off." His face scrunched in annoyance. Meredith blinked first in confusion, then in mild surprise. Recovering quickly, she gave him that patented sweet-sympathy face and offered: "Keep at it. She likes you, that's pretty obvious, and so she'll probably give in eventually." She shrugged. "_I _did, after all." She shut her chart, threw him a nod of solidarity, and headed off. _If only he could believe her. _Alex sighed and tried to focus on the patient stats in front of him.

-----

He had put himself out there, and she was going to have to shove it all back in his face. There had been a moment—when she'd stopped breathing and her tongue was dueling with his—in which she had been ready to throw caution to the wind. But the brain-addling lust was gone. He'd been impulsive and fool-hardy. (And _good_.) Alas, she was supposed to be the responsible one in their relationship. She'd asked for his help, before, and he'd given it to her. It was her time to return the favor now. Whether or not he asked. Regardless of what he wanted. And irrespective of _her_ wishes, too. She just had to find the right way to say it.

-----

Preston Burke was not a gossip. He had a supremely dignified air about him; it was almost magisterial. In fact, in the vapid, ditzy world of Seattle Grace, there was only one person who seemed to Addison _less _likely to throw around names and sex talk. _That_ would be Cristina Yang. (Addison had never witnessed a Cristina-Meredith gab fest.) They were a perfect match, really.

Going by personality, the logical man to talk to about the headaches of dating-when-superior would be Derek, of course. Now _he _was Mr. Fuzzy Feelings himself. But somehow, the notion of sitting down with her ex-husband—to dissect the development of his Great Love with the woman he'd left _her_ for—just didn't appeal to Addison. And George was still a sore topic with Callie. So here she was in the attendings' lounge, pretending to eat her cereal, eyeing the handsome cardiothoracic surgeon over bran flakes and skim milk.

Richard Webber had been right to compare her to Stevens. Not the identifying-with-patients problem—the blond outdid her _there _by miles. But the randomly personal questions habit? The you're-rich-right or you've-tried-adultery verbal hiccup? That, unfortunately, they shared. (Usually Miranda was the one to suffer the results.) So finally, she spit it out. "With Cristina, how'd you know it wasn't just a greatest-student-ever thing?" Preston turned toward her, one eyebrow up. "I mean, how'd you know it was a separate feeling—how'd you know that it was _love_?"

He leaned back a little and gazed at her impassively. She was immediately ashamed and wished she'd kept her mouth closed. There was a long, painful pause. "You don't," he suggested finally. "Not at first. You just go with it. And then one day, you wake up and look over at them, and the hospital is nowhere near your thoughts. It's no longer connected. And you just _know_."

She nodded gratefully. She didn't know what she'd have done if he hadn't responded at all. She hadn't a clue what to make of his answer, just yet—but at least it was there. Dumping her bowl in the sink, she headed off. On her way out, she tossed over her shoulder, "Oh, and this conversation never happened."

-----

The afternoon surgery went smoothly. For the patient and her baby, at any rate. The two surgeons standing over them were not so lucky. They had difficulty making eye contact; the scrub nurses assumed Karev had done something to piss the attending off, again. Angry silences were not unusual with this pair. The nurses didn't recognize the contemplative sadness in the air.

Addison was at a loss for words. She wished there was a handbook for this situation, a chapter on the being propositioned by the help in '_Attending' Excellence: Melding Surgical and Pedagogical Greatness_. Somehow, she suspected even Amazon-dot-com would fail her there. It hurt to see (out of the corner of her eye) how _beaten _Karev looked, how defeatist and resigned. She never meant to hurt the people she cared for. It just… happened, sometimes.

Perhaps the damage had been done. Because that kiss would not leave her mind, and she would always be thinking about what-might-have-been, every time she looked at him. _He had passed that on to her_. She repressed a sigh.

It looked, Alex reflected, like his troubles were here to stay. He had no idea how to repair what he'd broken. Gone was the easy camaraderie of the previous year; the space between him and Addison was fraught with hidden dangers, unseen harm. Him and his 'grand gestures.' If Frank had been on the table right then, Alex would have been tempted to let the scalpel slip. _Look at me, _he wanted to say. _Tell me we'll be okay._ But it was useless to ask: pointless for her to turn her eyes toward him, if he hadn't the courage to face them.

She let him close. He had, after all, learned something from Sloan: his stitches were now usually tidier than her own.

-----

"Hey there, Amy."

There was no one else in the NICU, but Alex kept his voice down anyway. Just in case. _Wouldn't want to wake the other sleeping babies._ A lot of things had changed in his years of neonatal training, but this refuge? Still remained. He was stressed and disappointed and unhappy, and he was dreading the final moment of truth. But the calm atmosphere of the room managed to seep into him all the same.

The door opened. Alex knew who had walked in without turning around. "Hey," he greeted her softly. Joining him at Amy Turner's incubator, Addison returned the hello. The tension in the silence which followed was excruciating, but Alex couldn't think of anything to say. How did he take back what he had said yesterday? How did they get back to normal? What could he possibly say or do that wouldn't make him feel like an even bigger idiot than already? She sighed. _Here we go_, he thought. _She's going to beat me to it; I'm going to be the one who gets rejected. _He really, really wanted to be the one to call it off. But his tongue was stuck. She turned to face him, and it took enormous effort to raise his eyes to meet hers.

She looked terrified. _I did a better job, that day in the closet, _Alex thought. And it was true—when he'd said he wasn't interested, he'd at least had the decency to appear _convincing_. This look she was giving him—a look of I-want-to-but-I-can't, please-don't-hate-me, I-can't-say-it-but-I-love-you—this look only made the words that were about to come that much worse. To his horror, he felt his eyes begin to water. _Great, real f---ing manly, Karev._ He didn't recognize this pathetic sap she'd turned him into.

At least there was no one else there. Normally, it'd be just his luck, to have a nurse he'd slept with witness the whole ordeal. But there was just the beeping of the monitors and the sound of their breathing to fill his ears. Hers was especially shallow. She was gathering her resolve, getting ready to take the leap.

"I'm Dr. Montgomery," she said, finally, and Alex looked at her like she'd lost her mind. _Well, duh_.

"And I'm Karev," he responded with a roll of his eyes. "Yes, exactly," she breathed with relief. _What? _Now he was confused.

"Here at the hospital, we can't—we have to be _twice _as professional as usual. No touching. No flirting. No first names. Nothing that shows—nothing out of the ordinary—_nobody can know_." She inhaled. "Got it?"

His breath caught. _Did that mean… _His heart swelled three sizes in his chest; his lungs had trouble expanding around the new obstruction. "You mean…"

She leaned closer and whispered: "8 o'clock. Zagi's on 80th." Then she drew back. _Well._ Alex felt his cheeks stretch out, almost to the point of pain. He straightened, every inch of him wired with fresh energy. _Yes!_ His eyes were suddenly drawn to her mouth, and he reached out to cup her face.

She slapped his hands away. "_Karev._ What did I say?!" He recovered quickly, stepping back a few feet. _Oh, right. _He cleared his throat.

"So, uh, I'm almost done with the Liam chart, Dr. Montgomery. Should I just leave it on your desk when it's finished?"

"Sounds good, Karev. After that, you can go home for the day." She nodded curtly at him and sailed away. _Home for the day._ _As if. _There was no way he was staying in, tonight.

He waited until he'd stopped grinning like a moron to exit, grab his things, and head home for a quick shower.

End of Chapter Nine.

-----

A/N: Oy. GG is just a tad exhausted. But if I can make it through the next two, the final two (fun! happy!) chapters are already well on their way to done. So, please do stick around!

Next up, a short chapter: Alex and Addison go on a first date.

Thank you so much for your lovely reviews! You're marvelous, all of you.


	10. Ice Cream Castles in the Air

Not mine. T/PG-13. Post-3x18. Addison and Alex grapple with professional aspirations and personal yearnings. Ongoing series. Mostly Addison/Alex with references to Addison/Mark and Addison/Derek.

Chapter Ten. "Ice Cream Castles in the Air." Addison and Alex go on a first date. In which absolutely nothing happens (seriously). And I lied about the short length. _Severe_ sugar advisory.

-----

At 7:30, Addison glared at her reflection. She had on her third outfit of the night. Jeans, and a fitted sweater. She was _Addison_, so the jeans were tapered, not torn, and the sweater was from Barney's. But the effort at "laid-back" was visible, at least. She'd redone her makeup so it was lighter, too. But perhaps that was a mistake. Peering in closely, with her nose nearly pressed against the glass, she saw a series of worrying lines about her eyes and mouth. She fought the urge to whip out concealer and attempt to fill them in.

_Argh_. She could have slapped herself, now, for having picked Zagi's as the locale. Sure, it was chill and low-key. Plus they'd been there already with O'Malley and it would be easy to label the meal "friendly" if necessary. But the lighting? As Alex would say, it _sucked._ Addison felt old enough, today, without throwing herself under the garish blaze of fluorescent bulbs. Without placing herself in a setting that _emphasized_ her distance from youth culture. Without making her grab food with her _fingers _and stuff her face with pizza, gracelessly. Yeah, she could have picked a better place.

But she hadn't had time to think it through. Well, that wasn't quite true. She'd had _all day _to think about their date, and whether or not she wanted it. But the interval between her decision to say _yes_ and her instructions on when and where—that had been a matter of seconds. She'd _intended _to say no, had a speech prepared, was ready with it's-for-your-career, and you-can-do-better-than-me, and I-can't-go-through-this-again. And then _oh God, _there were tears in his eyes, and Preston had said _you just go with it_, and it was a dinner that could turn out to be nothing, after all, and _oh_, but she'd really, really liked the way he kissed. And so—Zagi's it was. That was done, now.

_Dinner between friends_, she reminded herself. It didn't have to go further. Just friends, with the possibility of more. There'd be time enough to worry about the "more," later. Right now she needed to get going—or she'd be late.

-----

At 7:50, Alex paced the fifteen feet of pavement in front of Zagi's for the seventy-eighth time in the past ten minutes. (Arriving twenty minutes early had been dumb. But treading at home had pissed off the downstairs neighbors.) Three hours ago, he would have said that a _yes _from Addison was the highest possible form of happiness. At the moment, though, wearing a hole in the sole of his shoes, "happiness" felt a hell of a lot like abject terror.

He didn't know what he'd been thinking when he'd come on to his boss like that. Seriously? Who was he kidding? He was a board flunker, a cheating ass, and a small-town boy from _Iowa._ She was a New York City socialite in $900 shoes. So they got along pretty well. So they spent a lot of time together. So she seemed to care about him, and he cared a heck of a lot about her. That still didn't mean they could be in a _relationship _together. List the key features of their bios, and it was obvious: nothing could be more wrong. Yet here he was, and he had an hour (maybe two) to convince the woman who'd come to mean pretty much everything to him that she should let him mean everything to her, too.

-----

At 8:05, Alex caught a flash of red in the distance. He released a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding: at least she hadn't stood him up. (Sometimes five minutes could feel like forever.)

He was surprised by her appearance. He'd seen her look "casual," before, but even that had been slacks and a knit blouse. The jeans were new to him. (They were her trailer wear.) And she had on very little make-up. He was taken aback at first; it took him a few seconds to understand. Other girls showed they cared by dressing up for him, by putting on a dress and doing fancy things with their hair. (This was Izzie's way.) But Addison had put in effort to seem _less _effortlessly flawless. She was trying to put him at ease, so she'd worked to appear more… human. This wasn't her usual prep for romance; her looks aimed to please him, and him alone.

Alex thought she might look more beautiful at this moment than she ever had before.

-----

At 8:15, they'd been seated and ordered their food. The bustle of settling in was over, and they were left with no choice but to begin conversation. Addison squirmed in the silence. She needed to fill space, and fast. "So tell me, Karev, what it is that you do when I'm not ordering you around."

"Alex," he corrected, and she looked up. "Karev is reserved for work," he winked, "... and kinky Oedipal sex."

She laughed a little, nervously. "Alex, then," she murmured, averting her eyes; she was at once supremely uncomfortable at having her age thrown at her and grateful to have it out there. If they acknowledged and could overcome the weirdly-filial aspect of their dynamic, maybe this would be alright, after all. He rambled about his few hobbies, complaining that his hours as resident—and her slave driver habits—made it difficult for him to have more. As he talked, he placed a large, warm hand on hers, and there was _nothing_ maternal in her gaze when she lifted it now.

He had large hands. Dating Derek (before Mark), she'd forgotten the ritual of hand-measuring, that clichéd pressing of a man's fingers to hers, the mutual marveling at the difference in sizes. The truth was, it didn't usually work for her. Derek had dainty hands, prettier than hers really; they were great at making minute surgical gestures but did little to turn her on. _She _had unusually large hands, man-hands, that were strong and well-formed but unmanicured and, she had to admit, somewhat _unfeminine. _They were the sort of hands you didn't want to meet in a dark alley if you suspected that their owner had a mind to strangle you.

But Alex's hands—they made her own look like a woman's. Unthreatening. Overwhelmed. And while she liked her giant hands just fine… seeing them this way was kind of nice, for a change.

(Yes, it was pleasant having guy friends around, to make you feel like a proper _girl_. No question there.)

-----

At 8:35, their pizza arrived. They dug in with relief; chewing provided tangible occupation. After the first rapid mouthfuls were consumed, the need for conversation began to return. Addison couldn't think of a single thing to say. She glanced helplessly at Alex.

He was fidgeting again. Everything about his stance, his language, screamed confusion and awkwardness. And suddenly Addison decided she liked the fumbling. Because, well, she'd dated—and married—Prince Charming from the fairy tale, and that hadn't gone so well. This, right here? This was _real_.

Her first date with Derek had been superb. Classical music, candle-lit dinner, and a late-night walk in the moonlight. She'd been awestruck by his charm, his _smoothness_, and she couldn't believe her luck. She'd been too light-headed to participate, really, in the experience. The next day, she'd tried to describe the evening to her girlfriends, and she'd found she couldn't remember any details. _It was perfect_, she told them, refusing to elaborate. She didn't say, _I don't remember anything else._ But that was the truth.

Right now? Her date's fingers were covered in grease. She had tomato sauce running down her chin, and the flimsy paper napkin in her lap had shredded. The conversation had lagged too many times to count. Both their eyes had fixed on the table, the walls, and the other patrons in turn—anything but each other. The embarrassment was often overwhelming. But Addison knew she'd be able, tomorrow, to tell exactly what the colors of the tiles were, to retrace their pattern in her mind. She'd be able to describe the shape of the cushion behind her back, to name the crappy songs that played in the background, to recount each and every time their knees had brushed beneath the table. She was _here_, every inch of her.

Alex fought the impulse to brush the tomato sauce off her chin. It was an incongruity on her impeccable self. Despite her meticulous preparation (in favor of "casual"), Addison remained obviously too high-maintenance for this joint. It was her posture, the dainty way her fingers skimmed the food. She simply radiated class. She was out of place, to be sure, but Alex felt his chest puff up as he watched her. She was better than her setting, and she was here with _him. _She was _his_, for all the world to see—at least for the next hour or so.

So what if she was just here as his friend. It was still a good show.

-----

At 8:50, Addison was surprised to discover that she was having _fun_. Because after he loosened up a little, the Alex who charmed expectant mothers (when he thought no one was looking) had come out to play. And he was _funny_ and quick-witted, and he had an obviously good heart. He clearly aimed to please, as well, which didn't hurt. Addison liked a man who wanted her to enjoy herself—who paid _attention _to her, in any positive form. (Towards the end, Derek's way of showing she was on his mind had been to bring fish into the trailer and to develop a distaste for hot chocolate. He acknowledged through dislike.)

Alex was thrilled to see Addison smiling and laughing. He released a mental sigh of relief. His first date with Izzie had been a disaster. (She'd slammed the door when he dropped her off.) So now he could admit that he'd been petrified of tonight, convinced he'd make a disaster of it all. It was just as well she hadn't given him time to think it over—a day of anticipation might well have killed him. Instead, here they were, and her perfectly-ordered teeth displayed themselves again, when he cracked another joke (only funny at the time, but that was good enough). She tended to duck her head a little when she laughed; a strand of hair had slipped out and fallen against her cheek. Unthinkingly, he reached out to tuck it back behind her ear. If his motion briefly surprised them both, neither let on.

(It was a friendly gesture, he figured. No harm in that.)

-----

At 9:15, they'd arrived at the requisite topic of how-we-met. Alex could remember with vivid clarity Addison's arrival at SGH—no one before or since had entered with more aplomb. The hair, the clothes, the _walk_—there'd been no question in his mind that she was hot. The chief's loudly-voiced admiration for her surgical skills was just icing on the cake. He felt slightly guilty for his interest; he liked Meredith, and the woman _had_ ruined her life. Later Addison yelled at him, and he decided she was a bitch. But he couldn't help being intrigued, anyhow.

Addison recalled her instant distaste for the man across from her. With his rugged good looks and self-satisfied tone, he'd seemed a second Mark to her. Still reeling from Charlene and her last-minute abortion, surrounded by the chaos of death and train-wreck trauma, she'd lit into him the moment he wheeled the pregnant woman into the room. (Why wasn't she in bed, where she belonged?) That inauspicious start was followed by the disaster of the day he'd worked for her. (How often did love arrive in the form of a lawsuit?)

In retrospect, it had all come from the same place—Alex, she saw now, had a genuinely good soul. He wanted the pregnant lady to have the comfort of her friend. He saw a husband being betrayed, and he lashed out on the man's behalf. He was misguided and wrong, but she hadn't been kidding before. He _was _a decent guy, after all.

And that decent guy had reached out to help _her_, more than once. He hadn't always gone about it the best way (she still maintained the sugar in Mark's coffee had been just plain dumb). But time and time again, he'd made her feel better about her life, and about herself. He didn't always know what to say or do, but he was there, and that was a little more than something.

He was useful, and she was glad he was in her life. (It was just how _much _in her life that she hadn't yet decided.)

-----

At 9:35, they dipped their spoons into tiramisu. A clump of cream stuck to the corner of Alex's mouth; Addison had less self-control than he, so she reached over with her thumb to wipe it off. As the pad of her finger brushed over the smooth skin of his cheek, she noted that he'd shaved for her. She was oddly touched. (It was the kind of thing a young Derek would have done, but not Mark. The plastic surgeon maintained fastidious personal hygiene for his own sake only.)

He was looking at her with eyes infatuated; he wore a glow of puppy-dog love. And suddenly she was terrified of what lay ahead. _Oh, she should never have come. _Because she _liked _the person she saw reflected in his eyes. If they pursued this, that person would change. He'd get to know her—all of her—and once he saw her for who she was, Addison had a sinking suspicion that her value in his world would plummet. He'd like her less. _She'd _like her less, in turn. (The men in her life spent time with her and discovered she wasn't enough, alone. So they slept with other women.)

Alex caught the flicker of fear in her eyes. His face twisted in concern; he worried he'd wigged her out. She looked so _vulnerable_, right now. He felt the power shift strangely; it sent a heady rush to his ego. Because he'd just remembered that she needed _him_ to take the lead, now. Here, away from work, she needed his reassurance. It struck him as queer that he should be the one in control. Sloan, perhaps, he could see running the show, but Shepherd seemed like he'd needed Addison to guide him through their entire life together. But it made sense, in some weird way. She _was _in charge of him, all the time, and she had too fine a sense of honor not to balk a little at the potential abuse of power. And so Alex made up his mind, right then, that he'd never make her have to worry about that. He was _in_, whatever that meant, whether or not he knew how, and he was going to make this _thing _he'd set into motion sail smoothly. He would not let her regret taking the leap with him.

He recognized that the resolution was easier made than kept. His history did not bode well. The woman he'd cared for most, before, had been Izzie, and he'd cheated on her with Olivia anyway. But if sheer will could find a way, he would.

Then Addison was muttering something about failure, how it'd been a horribly long time, how she didn't know how to date, anymore. So Alex confessed that the last girl he'd seriously dated had dumped him for a guy bedridden. (After they'd slept together, and he'd thought the sex was pretty good.) They chuckled at their own incompetence. Then Alex looked at her straight on, and he told her that she was different. That he'd never been this _in_, in anything, before. That he had a real hunch this could _go_ somewhere.

He was being a _little_ more than friendly, perhaps. But the moment felt right, and it seemed to go over well.

-----

At 10:10, they fought over the check. He was miffed that she'd even offered. In his eagerness, he appeared so _young. _(What would happen when he woke up one morning and realized he was a young man lying next to an old woman? How quickly would he bore of her?) He was concerned it all meant nothing if he didn't pay. "But then it's 'just friends,'" he protested. She told him she earned ten times what he did; she urged him to "just let it go." They ended up splitting the bill. She left the "just friends" statement alone.

But she almost told him, _Don't worry about that, either._

-----

At 10:25, they stood at the foot of her apartment building. Coffee was hesitantly offered, but then they both remembered 5 a.m. rounds. So they prepared to part.

They stood in awkward silence for some time, their bodies swaying slightly but unable to reach out. Then he stretched up the steps to land a quick kiss on her cheek. Non-threatening. Ambiguous.

It wasn't enough. She put her hands around his face and seized his lips in her own. She held them there for three seconds, maybe four. Then she stepped back and blushed in the darkness. There had been no tongue. It was a kiss to express caring, gratitude, and hope. Not a call for hot sex right now. Just… _thanks for tonight_, and _we'll meet again_. It was her wordless answer to his tentative, unspoken question.

"Good night, Alex," she whispered, in a voice dripping with the promise of dreams fulfilled. Then she left him standing on the doorstep and slipped inside. Once the lock clicked shut, she leaned back against the door of the foyer, closed her eyes, and sighed.

Dinner between friends had _definitely _become something more.

End of Chapter Ten.

-----

A/N: Let's face it—most first dates are excruciatingly boring in the retelling (except for the total disasters). You really had to have been there. Sorry about the long wait; I fought with this forever, but I've decided I just need to move along (the next chapters should be better, I hope).

I have never been to Seattle. So Zagi's Pizza Place exists, but my description of it is entirely made up. Apologies if you've been there and were tearing your hair out while reading.

Just three more to go. Next up: Alex and Addison work out some kinks in their new arrangement. Thank you all so much for reading and for your reviews!


	11. Jump a Little Higher

Not mine. T/PG-13. Post-3x18. Addison and Alex grapple with professional aspirations and personal yearnings. Ongoing series. Mostly Addison/Alex with references to Addison/Mark and Addison/Derek.

Chapter Eleven. "Jump a Little Higher." Addison and Alex work out some kinks in their new arrangement.

-----

He was a one-night stand man. She was an adulterous whore. It was bizarre and unexpected and somewhat hysterical that they'd managed to put off sex for so long. Because it was a couple of weeks after Addison had agreed to dinner, and they _still_ hadn't done the deed. No nooky in the on-call room. No screwing against the walls. No passionate wrestling on the kitchen floor. Well. The jury was still out on whose fault that was.

-----

Alex suspected he was the problem. Because they'd been making out like teenagers, every night, and _somehow _it had never become more. He was sure she must be ready to kill him for not ever making the move. He _was _the guy in this, after all. Izzie's forwardness was probably unusual. Plus, there was that power thing again. So it wasn't like he could sit around waiting for her to seduce him.

But truthfully? He was terrified. The last time he'd felt anything for a woman, he'd found it difficult to… perform. And that was _not _the kind of humiliation he wanted to taste again. Plus, well, Addison had slept with Shepherd _and _with Sloan, and those were some tough acts to follow. So he'd get to the point of no return with her, night after night, and just chicken out. 'Cause like, it would seriously, _seriously _suck if he found he couldn't get it up. But this gutlessness would end, and soon. Because the wait was driving him crazy.

-----

Addison was convinced she was to blame. If she'd just dragged him upstairs with her, that first night, they wouldn't be in this awful state. But that decorous kiss she'd given him had set the tone, and she didn't know how to change it. He was holding back, and she was sure that was because of her. (His reputation as a mini-manwhore had not escaped her.) It was a sign of his affection that he tried to respect her wishes. But he'd got her wishes all _wrong_. She was dying for some action, any action, and she'd tried repeatedly to get them there, but somehow their clothes always stayed on. She must have pulled back unconsciously. He was responding to her hesitation, that was all.

And in all honesty? She was somewhat scared. She'd fumbled through a few one-night stands since dumping Mark, but they'd all been pretty much disastrous. She'd dated Derek _forever_ before she'd slept with him. And her affair with Mark had been the culmination of a long friendship; besides which, she'd been drunk. Getting naked for the first time in front of a man was not something she wholly looked forward to. Sex, sure. But baring her body? Letting him see the flab, the skin flaws, the wobbly parts? That was too much. He was so much _younger_; his flesh was still smooth and toned. She knew it was silly, but a part of her feared he'd stop wanting her, as soon as he actually saw her. But if she could _just _get past that, she knew they'd be unstoppable. Of their chemistry, she was sure.

-----

Lack of sex aside, the dating was still a minor form of paradise.

At work, it took a little while for Alex to get his behavior under control. The fact that she was _his_, at last, gave him the urge to grin like an idiot, most of the time. He had to remind his left arm not to curl around her waist when they were standing side-by-side. He was sure his happiness was written all over his face, sure the whole world could read his mind. All things considered, it was probably better that they'd waited. If a few kisses and light groping left him this giddy, he had no idea how he would have hidden a post-coital glow.

Addison was startled by her lack of self-possession. She'd been ready to bat away _his _hands, to scowl and glare him into good behavior. She hadn't expected to need to still _her _hands from clasping his, to keep her cheek from dropping onto his shoulder when she approached him from behind. She was a _professional_, by God, and it shouldn't have been this hard. But the urge to _claim _him, publicly, took a while to quiet down. (The flirtatious NICU nurses didn't help.) Well, it was probably just nerves, because they hadn't slept together yet. She was scared he'd leave before she got her booty call.

-----

At long last, Callie received a fellowship offer from New York. She took it, eagerly: Seattle was ruined for her now. She, Addison, and Miranda went out for drinks, one last time, and they toasted her future. Preston was upset, as he'd made her an offer he'd thought she couldn't refuse. Addison was sorry to say goodbye to a very good friend; Callie had been there for her, when she was at her lowest. But she'd _been _where the younger woman was, herself—had considered leaving more than once—and she got it. So she didn't try to dissuade her. Miranda didn't _say _how much she'd miss the bone doctor, but her eyes were dull as she nursed her drink—they could tell she felt the loss.

-----

Naturally, once Callie was no longer around to crow, Izzie caught Mark kissing a scrub nurse and called their engagement off. It was truly his first indiscretion, though of course no one believed his words. The nurse had been the one to come on to him, anyway. He'd returned the gesture out of politeness, that was all.

A pissed-off Izzie did what she always did—she went to Alex. But this time, he stopped her before their lips made contact. _There's someone else_, he mumbled, eyes on the ground. She looked shocked, then embarrassed. When she started crying, he felt like a real ass; he held her in his arms but could offer nothing more.

Mark figured that Addison had been lonely long enough. _She must be dying of horniness_, he thought, and generously pulled her into the nearest on-call room. He was stunned when she turned him down. A Mark Sloan special, even without the pull of their emotional history together, was always well worth a half-hour. He had to be losing his touch or something. When he stopped by the men's room, later, he checked his reflection, carefully, for additional gray hair. Nothing there. _No accounting for some women, _he supposed.

-----

It really was one of Addison's most annoying traits: she was so freakin' self-absorbed. Alex stopped by after work without asking, these days. He'd bring takeout, or she'd throw pasta and a jar of Prego on the stove. Zagi's had been a risk; Seattle wasn't that big of a town. So most days they just stayed in, left the TV on, and cuddled on the couch. Work days were long; by the end of the day they were both exhausted. Their first weekend together, they did make it to a movie. Some dumb chick flick. But that was it. Whatever. So they were boring people. What did it matter, anyhow? (Granted, sex would help.)

But today, he wanted to tell her about Izzie. Because he knew she didn't want anyone to know, and he was worried about the blond. She might put two and two together. And also, he wanted to tell her—somehow, he wasn't sure what words to use—that telling Izzie he had someone else had made him proud. So he wrapped his arms around her from behind and took the sauce jar from her hands. She'd been fighting with it for some time; he opened it in one go. But she wouldn't let him get a word in edgewise. She was busy cursing Mark, _what a jerk he was_, and saying how she missed having Callie around. Boyfriends were nice, but a woman still needed female friends. And Miranda, bless her cranky soul, just wasn't that receptive of a sounding board.

Once she got started, she could go on for hours. He sighed inwardly and resigned himself to hearing more.

-----

They were being cautious, but Addison worried anyway. If word got out, she didn't want her protégé's career to be over. She wanted him to do rotations in other related departments: not only so he could broaden his experience, but so he could work with other influential figures one-on-one. If people found them out and her word on his behalf became questionable, she wanted him to have other people upon whom he could call. A letter from Dr. Srinigov should do the trick. An extra one from Ally Hartman wouldn't hurt. She laid her plan before him and he scoffed.

"God, you're such a control freak. Like, _scram, Svengali_," he quipped with a wink. (Her taste in films had started to rub off on him.) But he did what she instructed anyway. He'd sort of been planning to all along. He wasn't stupid, after all.

-----

The nice thing about having a boyfriend with a car was that you could ask him to run errands for you sometimes. The presumption was that he could pick stuff up and you could get it from him later, after hours.

Alex couldn't decide whose face was funnier, Addison's or Sloan's, when he marched up to the nurse's station with an armful of her clothes slung over his shoulder. "Your dry-cleaning, Dr. Montgomery," he intoned straight-faced. The two surgeons' expressions were priceless. She recovered first. "Thank you, Karev," she deadpanned as she took his burden from him. She walked calmly away to drop it off in her office. As she floated off, she heard Mark curse and call out after her, "Woman, you're a total hypocrite, you know…."

-----

They started sleeping together. Not having sex, just… sleeping. Because driving home from her apartment at 2 a.m. had gotten old. One night he came into the bathroom to kiss her on the cheek before he left (she was brushing her teeth); she gestured towards the bed and spit out with some toothpaste, "Whatever, it's late, just stay and sleep."

And so he borrowed some soap and an extra toothbrush, and he crawled into the far end of her bed. Put his head down on her pillow. They'd made out plenty on her couch, but being in _bed _with her seemed different. So when she settled in on the other side, he made no moves to touch her. It would be like the night in New York City, he supposed. But then she rolled over and pressed her back against his front, so he unfolded his arms and tentatively wrapped them around her. She snuggled in further. It was surprisingly comfortable. He figured he could learn to like not sleeping alone.

-----

A pregnant patient's abusive husband had abandoned her for good. She was hysterical. She blamed the doctors for notifying the police: they'd scared him off. Addison kept her voice patient and gentle, but Alex thought she came off as patronizing, just a little. So when she turned away for a moment to hide her disgust, he stepped in and took the patient's hand. In soothing tones, he suggested that she might have lost her husband (_we can't help who we love_), but she still had the chance to love their son. She needed to be strong for the baby, because someday, when he was grown, she was going to tell him all about his dad. Alex hated wife-beaters, and he thought her better off. But he kept that to himself and showed respect for the reality of her love. It was a new tactic for him. Whether it was the words or the handsome doctor's touch, Addison and Alex didn't know. But the patient calmed down.

Addison was really rather proud of him right then.

-----

What got Alex about Addison was the way she rolled her eyes _after _those frequent moments of self-absorption. She admitted to him, one day, that she had found Mark's cheating something of a relief. Even if that made her somewhat awful. His perfect romance with Stevens had been a real blow to her ego. _How come he can be that man for her, but couldn't do it for me_, she'd wondered. Even if it was just a kiss, not a full-blown affair—even if the two of them seemed to be making amends, now—she was secretly grateful for a sign that he was mostly the Mark she'd turned down, years ago. Alex thought this was ridiculous, and he was a little jealous that she still cared, but he forgave her when she ended the rant with a laugh, and turned her eyes towards the ceiling in exasperation with herself.

Yeah, it was her eye-roll that he'd fallen for. Not the quiet moments of confession, the admissions of vulnerability that she occasionally let slip around him, but the self-mocking, pick-yourself-up, apologetic way she reacted to them afterward. Her gestures of _embarrassment _around him when she caught herself whining—those were what made him want to be with her. Because he got that kind of self-doubt, got it in a big way. So what if they were both a bit selfish at times—what mattered was how they worked to make it better.

-----

He'd forgotten what Grey knew. So he was taken aback when she accosted him in the locker room with a wink and a smile.

"Congratulations," she said lightly. He looked at her, confused. "Izzie said you were with someone. And I figured, who else?" He felt his face turn a bit red. _No use denying it_. "She's quite a catch, you know. So, nice work, or whatever." Sensing his horror, she added with an impish smile, "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone."

He mumbled something vaguely recognizable as thanks and skittered off.

-----

And then, just like that, Dr. Addison Montgomery and her shoe-shining acolyte Alex Karev had a very, very bad Friday. A quiet board led to a string of failures, the string of failures to a series of scenes in waiting rooms with families of homely, unglamorous people who _cared. _On days like this one both doctors desperately wished they'd chosen to do something else. (Addison had always had a flair for theater. Karev thought he'd have led a great punk-rock band.)

That night they decided there'd be no more waiting. It wasn't really a voiced idea, mostly implicit. They met at the door of the hospital and their tired, world-weary eyes said it all. Too many people had died; too many had too few days left. This was why people got together: they offered each other comfort on evenings like these. So Addison followed Alex's car to his apartment and walked in silence with him to the door. They were comfortable together, now. They were ready. They would know what they were about, and it would be _good_. He took her by the hand and led her inside.

It was time for something more.

End of Chapter Eleven.

-----

A/N: Alex's Svengali quote is stolen from the brilliant _His Girl Friday _(1940), starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, and refers to the evil hypnotist in the hokey (but marvelous) George du Maurier novel _Trilby _(1894).

In Chapter Twelve, the long wait ends. Penultimate chapter. Thanks so much to all of you who've been reading and reviewing. (And thanks for coming back after the horrid lull of the last!)


	12. First Impressions

Not mine. T/PG-13. Post-3x18. Addison and Alex grapple with professional aspirations and personal yearnings. Ongoing series. Mostly Addison/Alex with references to Addison/Mark and Addison/Derek.

Chapter Twelve. "First Impressions." The long wait ends. Penultimate chapter. Fairly short and utterly without plot. (Narrative movement returns in the next.)

-----

The second the door to his apartment swung shut behind them, Alex and Addison sprung into action.

Her hands were under his shirt at once, and his were busy pretty much all over. His keys dropped to the floor and somehow he managed to get the lights flipped on without ever letting go. Addison's breath came so fast she was almost hyperventilating. She multi-tasked: while their mouths were haphazardly enmeshed, she rubbed her front up and down him. _Oh, God, _but he felt good. Her knee struck the coffee table and she tripped. Alex caught her and in the process pressed their bodies even closer. _Just right._ That's how she felt in his arms. The contact was in _all _the perfect places, and it was almost enough for both to come, right there. But they exerted a little self-control.

His mouth found the spot behind her ear that he'd discovered Tuesday; it was guaranteed to make her moan. She dug her nails into his chest, and he gasped a little. _At last._ His stubble scraped her cheek; she'd have red marks in the morning. She was soft and narrow and smelled good to him—even without the traces of the day's perfume. Their tongues twirled and slid against each other.

-----

And then, just for a second, Addison made the (fatal) mistake of opening her eyes. She mentally swore. Alex's apartment, she saw at once, had really cruddy lighting. And by cruddy, she meant _too bright_. If they'd been at her place, she could at least have set the mood. But she was a trooper, so she did her best to ignore it. She shut her eyes again and concentrated on the kissing.

As he guided them towards the bedroom, Alex observed with horror the state of his home. There was crap just about everywhere. _Damn, she must think I'm a slob._ There was a good reason he'd been going over to her place. Tonight he'd hoped, stupidly, that he'd be more on his game at his home base. But it was too late to fix that now. Back to business.

And then his hands were fiddling with the buttons of her blouse, undoing them. Uh-oh. She'd been an idiot that morning and had worn her most matronly bra. _Nothing kills the mood like full coverage._ But maybe she'd luck out, and he wouldn't notice? The boobs inside were decent, at least. Or so she thought.

As he worked on undressing Addison, Alex suddenly felt the old anxiety return. _No-no-no. Not here. Not now. _This was where he usually split and ran. But they'd slept together every night this week—his hesitation was absurd. The whole point of waiting was so their first time could be perfect. And it would be: Alex would do whatever it took. He was going to be a _man_. No other option, here. _Damn_, but there was no getting around it: he was terrified. They had waited far too long. There had been too much build-up; the pressure was too great. It would be a repeat of Izzie: disaster, all over again. _Oh hell, _he thought as his tongue tangled with hers. Better make some clear progress, here, and soon.

Addison felt his movements falter, and the fear transferred to her. She panicked. They weren't ready, after all. _If she'd just gone and had her way with him, years ago…. _Unplanned and desperate—that was the way to go. She knew that now. But there was no going back—and here they were. She continued to kiss him energetically, but at this point, she rather _knew_ she was aroused than _felt_ it. He shifted down, and his hands reached around her ass to press her closer. _They clung to each other_, her mind helpfully supplied, _like barnacles to a whale_. She snorted. (Thank God she'd never wanted to be a writer.)

"Addison?" Alex lifted his head from its position somewhere inside her half-unbuttoned shirt, eyes heavy-lidded and bemused. "Something funny?" Her eyes widened and she shook her head emphatically. "Please do continue," she encouraged him, politely. His eyebrows lifted, but he re-lowered his head.

The lack of alcohol had been a mistake. The pounding of her heart was only partly arousal, and a greater portion nerves.

She remembered the last first-time before her marriage, Brady Thompson, college, in the year before she was introduced to Derek. He had a habit of creative swearing during sex, and he liked it best when she screamed like a porn star. (So she faked it. She wasn't naturally that loud.) Plus he liked techno music during the act. Her first night with him, they hadn't even made it to the condom part before it was all over and she was mopping semen off her legs. God, but he'd been weird. A step up from Skippy Gold to be sure—thank God she'd never let _him_ near her vagina—but hardly first-rate. Was it any wonder she'd fallen head over heels for Derek the moment they'd met?

But that was then, and this was now, and oh God… _here we go, then. _

-----

Their first time was a fumbling mess. Alex ripped the first condom with his rapid, jerky movements, so Addison took the matter into her own hands. He blamed the dim lighting: she'd made him turn off almost all the lights, before she'd let him remove her bra. She was self-conscious about the sagging. He was afraid that Sloan was better-endowed. Neither dared to look too closely at the other. His socks stayed on; her panties got caught around her left ankle. Fighting for top position, they knocked his bedside lamp over, and she bumped her head on the corner of the nightstand. More than once, Addison fought the urge to giggle out of nerves.

They got through it somehow, but he came before her and she had to finish herself off. When it was over, they both lay back in silence. Addison's face was burning red from mortification. She mused to herself, _Am I really that out of practice?_ Alex, lying beside her, remembered Sloan's reputation for sexual prowess—and kind of wanted to shoot himself.

_Where had they gone wrong_? When Addison reflected on their history together, those heavily-charged moments they'd had earlier—in surgery, in the hallway, in her office, _everywhere_—it didn't make any sense. _The kissing had been fantastic, too._ Why, then, this dismal failure? Her brain was way too active for one just-after-orgasm. (If he'd been Derek, she'd have told him it was time for Finn to call.)

-----

A second attempt proved more fruitful. After an hour of embarrassed resting, side by side, Addison sat up. She skimmed her eyes along his stretched-out, naked body. _God, he's beauti—_then her mouth quirked and she reached down. "What the—" Alex began to ask. But when he saw her rolling off his socks, he burst out laughing, and she joined him. "It was killing the fantasy!" Addison managed to gasp out, high-pitched, between her squeals of mirth. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pinned her down, still chuckling. _Ah. _She let him hold her there, relaxed now, while he pressed his lips against her shoulder. Next he moved them to the hollow of her throat, then to the bend in her arm, then to just above her navel, and then _finally_, further down.

-----

The year of trailer living with a cranky Derek meant that Addison had gotten good at sneaking out of bed unnoticed. Slipping into her clothes and out of the bedroom Saturday morning, she smirked a little when her muscles protested and her joints ached. _About time they were put to some recreational use._ Sure, it was a sign of old age. But it was also a sign of bent knees, self-contortion, and violent abuse of the nearest wall. All good things. _Hm_. In other news? She was also really hungry.

A quick survey of the kitchen revealed nothing that could possibly be of use. The frying pan looked dubious; its coating was mostly rubbed off and the food would probably stick. (She'd have to wash it first as well.) No eggs in the fridge, anyhow. Giving up on food, she searched for coffee. No machine, no beans, but there was an unwashed naked-lady mug (hot water made her clothing disappear) and some packets of Nestlé instant brew. She frowned. _Okay, that cheerful mood? Going to evaporate, really soon._ She soaped the cup, heated tap water in the microwave, mixed the drink, and sat down. Sadly, no sugar around. But then she heard footsteps behind her and Don Juan himself (in boxers only) suddenly appeared.

He smiled at her, and she smiled at him, and both their expressions were, they knew, just a hair's-breadth short of loopy. He bent down and his lips brushed the top of her head as he swept by her. She was hit with a sudden rush of _caring_—and then there were tears prickling in her eyes. Because he was scruffy and unkempt and too-young and irritable and she wanted to dig her claws into him and never, _ever_ let him leave her sight.

The coffee tasted like crap. She was starving. She really needed a change of clothes. The room smelled like dirty laundry, and their sex life had started off more than a little disastrously. But she wouldn't have had it any other way. Because after numerous boyfriends, one bad marriage, and one train-wreck of an affair, she'd finally figured something out.

Love, she realized, was having really bad sex, and being _okay_ with that—because you knew for sure there'd be a next and better time.

"You should really get a coffee maker," she sniffed, ungraciously. "And some _coffee_—I really don't know what you call this powdered trash."

"Dude, you get that you're a total snob, right?" But there was a hint of a smile behind the voice. Because Alex was in a fantastic mood.

"Of course I am. But I'm also a very hungry one. Don't you have _anything _to eat in here?!"

His heel kicked open the refrigerator door and he swooped down to grab a cardboard box in one sleek movement. He flipped open the carton and presented it to her with a flourish. "Pizza, only three days old. And it's even _supreme_."

She stared at him incredulously, but plucked a slice out, anyway. He sat down across from her, leaning back with an easy, self-satisfied grin.

"Tonight," she informed him, "we're sleeping at my place."

-----

That night at Addison's apartment, there was a better time. And then? Some even_ better_. When on Sunday afternoon Addison finally ditched her bed-sheet garb for real clothes and tried to head across the street for some food, a naked Alex caught her around the waist before she reached the door, and sustenance was postponed for an hour more.

From then onwards, they never slept alone. Usually, it was at her place. He liked it there—he'd helped her pick it, after all. On-and-off, they braved cold pizza and beer back at his. Eventually, though, three months after their first time, he took the few of his belongings that she _hadn't_ sneaked off to charity—and permanently intermingled them with hers.

End of Chapter Twelve.

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A/N: _In a very, very small voice_: don't hate me, please? Please? Or, I guess, if you're mad you could… curse me in a review? ;) I have to confess, I _almost_ began the chapter with this:

"And then Alex and Addison had sex, and it was magical. Fireworks exploded and the angels sang. _Hallelujah, right there, oh God, yes, and Jesus! _Meanwhile, back on planet Earth…."

But I didn't. So, uh, maybe we can both be grateful for the little things in life? Ahem. (Also: please note this story's title.)

In the FINAL chapter, Alex completes his training, and our pair moves forward. Progress and a little bit of sunshine. I only get one last "update," which will probably be Saturday-ish, so it'll be hard to find if you miss that post. But if you can remember, later, please do come back and finish it off? Use a bookmark, favorite, alert, whatever? I'm really quite hopeful that the ending will be sweet and fun. Not like this chapter at all. (Finishes prostrating self.) Thanks so much, again, for reading, and for your (previously) kind reviews!


	13. Color Portrait World

Not mine. T/PG-13. Post-3x18. Addison and Alex grapple with professional aspirations and personal yearnings. Completed series. Mostly Addison/Alex with references to Addison/Mark and Addison/Derek.

Chapter Thirteen. "Color Portrait World." Alex completes his training. Our pair moves forward.

-----

Alex and Addison were not a perfect couple. In an ideal world, if someone had handed each of them the chance to custom-build a partner, their choices would have looked almost nothing like each other. But each was what the other _had_. So when they got into an argument at work, they tried hard to let it go at home. When home saw either storming from the apartment, they did their best to keep it out of the OR. A bit of patience and some effort to reach compromise made it possible for them to live together.

She was anal-retentive and squeamish about dirt. She'd say she hadn't left the trailer just to have him _bring _the wilderness indoors. He didn't get how someone who stood elbow-deep in blood and guts all day could care so much. (He avoided comment on the individually boxed-in-plastic pairs of shoes.)

He was bothered that he couldn't afford to match her contributions in the extravagant lifestyle she preferred. So sometimes he rained on her parade: a bid to protect his masculine pride. She thought this was stupid. It was all spare change, after all, to her.

But he learned to put his dirty clothing in the hamper. And she (mostly) gave up haute cuisine.

The naked-lady mug, though, stayed put. She had at least a dozen Wedgewood teacups, but he used his own just to tick her off. She'd wrinkle her nose and call it degrading to women. He'd leer at her and act the misogynistic asshole. But she knew that he knew that it reminded her of their first time, and she never carried out her threat to fork it over to Goodwill.

-----

When he became a senior resident, Alex was given a set of interns of his very own. He was in good standing in the program, and his leadership skills were deemed sufficient to be worth passing on. Among his cohort, he was definitely "the hot one." All the female interns (and more than one of the guys) had giant crushes on him. Grey was the crazy lady; she seemed nice but her temper was a little unpredictable. Izzie was a Sydney—so perky she drove her interns nuts. O'Malley was dubbed a "giant teddy bear." And Yang was Seattle Grace's brand new Nazi, of course. (The original Nazi was the General Surgery Attending; she still terrified them all.)

Alex _acted_ mean and tried to mimic Addison and Bailey: he claimed he trained his students with "tough love." But a few months showed his suck-ups that he'd cave if they tried hard enough. He was a softie. He had zero street cred. (Dude, but that blew chunks.)

-----

Sometime early in their relationship, Alex got into the habit of disturbing her in the shower. She liked long showers in the morning; she was willing to get up a half hour earlier to make them possible. Alex usually slept in later. He'd typically join her around the time she was rubbing in hair conditioner. But sometimes he'd rise before her, and she'd come to consciousness, rather literally, to find his lips and fingers already hard at work.

After one such wake-up call, Addison closed her eyes under the running water. She was startled when a pair of arms wrapped around her from behind. His hands went straight to _there_, and she gasped. As he kissed her shoulder and traced sharp patterns with his thumb and forefinger, she briefly contemplated setting down a limit on the number of times he was allowed to make her come before they'd eaten breakfast. Then he changed direction slightly, and then God—_ah, _and_ oh_.

She rejected the plan at once.

-----

Preston had a way of creeping up on one. He must have picked up the silent, sneaky movements from his wife. So Addison nearly spilled her Starbucks brew when his voice sounded just behind her.

"Karev's come along really well, don't you think?" She turned to face him and threw him a self-satisfied smirk. "I only allow myself to work with the best," she declared smugly.

"But naturally, you claim credit for the results," he returned, amused.

"Why, to be sure," she spoke airily, "I take the best and make it better—I'm just that good."

"I'm going to offer him our finest fellowship, you know. Assuming you approve of him for neonatal work, that is." As if it were in doubt. She coughed.

"That's very generous of you, Preston," she said carefully. "But you should know that I'll be advising him to take a position somewhere else. Get a different perspective, form some new connections, and all that."

He raised an eyebrow at her. They didn't touch on personal stuff very often, and he hadn't ever brought the subject up again. But even Preston Burke got curious, sometimes. So he added, "A position in the area, of course."

The hand that stirred her coffee stilled. A flicker of recognition passed over her face, then vanished. She smiled (just a little too) brightly at him. "Of course," she echoed.

-----

"Hey there, Alex." He turned and was surprised to see a familiar face. It was one he'd helped the owner choose.

"Ava," he returned, pleased. They chatted for a while and caught up: she'd rebuilt her life, from scratch, and it was going pretty well. A piece of her artificial bone structure had collapsed, though, and she needed Sloan to redo it. Otherwise most things were good. Alex was genuinely glad to see her happy. She was thrilled to learn he'd gone the neonatal route. But curiosity won out, and finally she dropped in, with a wink: "So, how are things going with that redhead of yours?"

Alex felt sure he was blushing. He smiled sheepishly and looked around to see if anyone was listening. The coast was clear. He bent towards her ear.

"Pretty good, I guess," he said quietly. "Stuff's less… complicated, now. But it's all on the down-low, you know?" He shrugged, and she beamed at him. "That's great news," she declared, giving his arm a quick squeeze. "I'm really happy for you." He laughed nervously and quickly changed the subject.

-----

Occasionally, the constant attention Alex got from all her nurses pissed Addison off. It didn't help that she suspected he had actually screwed some of them. They were in the NICU one afternoon, checking on a fragile patient, while Nancy Meyers changed a diaper in the next incubator over. Meyers made small talk with Alex the whole while, batting her eyelashes and checking him out with zero subtlety. After a good seven minutes of observing this flirtation, Addison handed the instrument in her hand to her resident and stalked off.

He found her afterwards, sitting in the stairwell; she was biting her lip and staring at the floor. _Get a grip_, she'd tried to tell herself, but it happened to be an unfortunate time of month. It was completely unwarranted, but the urge to cry wouldn't stop. _How ridiculous_. He sat down next to her and nudged her shoulder with his own.

She sighed. "You slept with her, didn't you?" He didn't deny it. She turned to him; her face was full of pain, unreasonable but real. He was a bit annoyed—she was being melodramatic, again—but looking at her look at him like that still hurt.

"Yeah," he offered with a shrug, "but she wasn't very good." She laughed a little—that made it better.

Now she felt embarrassed. The Addison who chose to say, "I need to special-order a thicker skin," rather than "I hurt too much," always got annoyed when she heard herself kicking up a fuss. So she apologized in her way.

"Thanks for putting up for me," she offered, in a tone that tried but failed to be off-handed. He shook his head, exasperated.

"Look, seriously? The apologizing thing? Kind of drives me nuts." He checked for spectators—they were alone—and gave her a quick but firm and gentle kiss, to soften the words. "Makes me think I'm not doing my job or something. Like, c'mon, you should really _know _how I feel about you by now."

She smiled at him, and her eyes said she was sorry for saying she was sorry, but she held back the words. She stood and helped him up as well. And they went back to work.

-----

Surgeons built their careers by word-of-mouth. The best word-of-mouth came from other surgeons. By this point in his residency, Alex had done a host of procedures on his own. But the big cases? The ones that the local newspapers reported on, the ones doctors from the neighboring hospitals came by to observe? Well, those patients always wanted the best, and the best was Dr. Montgomery. But fellowship decisions were coming up soon, and Addison was worried that he needed "edge." So in typical Addison-fashion, she concocted a complicated, morally-ambiguous plan to help. She put it into action without consulting anyone else. (Derek really hated when she did that.)

A local woman expecting triplets came to spend her final period of bed rest at Seattle Grace. One of her babies was completely normal. The other two were partially-conjoined. The paired twins weren't unusual; Alex had assisted on similar cases a dozen times. Their vessels weren't too-heavily entwined. Still, because the conjoined twins were part of triplets, the case had narrative interest; observation turnout was expected to be good. Addison deviously made a point of interacting little with the patient, leaving Alex to win over the the pregnant woman's confidence on his own.

Then, a week after her admittance, Addison approached the patient with an odd request. A close friend in New York had lost her father, and Addison wanted to fly out to offer her support. (This was true, but it had been a lucky coincidence. Addison had prepared a dozen other scenarios in advance.) Would the patient consider letting Dr. Montgomery off the hook and putting her trust in Dr. Karev instead? Addison had worked with him for many years, and she was confident in his ability. Specialists from pediatrics and obstetrics would be on-hand, as well, to help out.

To the amazement of Alex's peers (and the other attendings), the patient agreed. His good looks and gruff-but-kindly charm had won her over. Addison watched the fetuses' progress on the sonogram to the last—any sign of complications, and she'd take the tough case back. But the patient and her babies seemed quite stable to the end. _He's done this many times—he can do this in his sleep_, Addison reminded herself, as her flight to JFK took off. _Savvy really needs me; that's the truth_. She was nervous, but she trusted that her gambit would pay off. It had to happen sometime. If things went wrong, it was likely that the same would have befallen her, too. She wasn't God. And Karev was really damned good. (She had trained him, so of course he was.) She'd never shied away from "grand" teaching moments, anyhow.

It had not been false optimism on her part. Dr. Karev performed a beautiful C-section. He handed the healthy baby to a nurse, let a younger resident close, and separated the conjoined twins without a hitch—to copious applause. News of the (mere) resident's feat spread from hospital to hospital. Others of his generation were envious. Chiefs of Surgery drew his fellowship application out of very tall piles and placed it right on top.

-----

One ordinary morning, Addison woke up to find her hand resting on the mushy center of her lover's gut. His chest and arms were well-toned, but his stomach showed the start of a spare tire. She found this comforting: a harbinger that his body was on its way to matching the rickety state of her own. She sat up carefully and examined the lines of his face and figure.

_One day you wake up and look over at them_, Preston had said, _and you just know._ Her eyes traced the curve of his shoulder, the oddly squished skin where his face met the pillow, and the small puddle of drool forming beneath his open mouth.

And then, right there. She _knew_.

-----

When Mercy West offered Alex a plum fellowship in maternal fetal medicine, he hadn't wanted to take it. "But you're the best," he grumbled plaintively, when Addison hinted it was worth a serious look. "Why should I leave to work with second-rate?"

In truth, he'd grown so used to being around her, 24/7, that the separation of ten-to-twelve hours a day seemed unthinkable. She'd muttered something about unhealthy bonds and scoffed at his youthful, drawn-out conception of time. The other hospital was, after all, practically next door. _Infantile attachment, _he thought he'd heard, and he shrugged and owned the weakness without shame. Addison sighed and leaned back in her chair, propping two expensively-clad heels on her burlwood desk. She checked the door to her office; it was closed. "Well I have a solution," she said casually, and he cocked his head in a gesture of curiosity. "I think that you should marry me."

_"What?" _had been his eloquent response.

"Go to Mercy West, and marry me. Then those daytime hours won't matter. We'll have the rest of our lives."

It only started to make sense after a three course dinner and some first-rate French champagne. They were celebrating the event of her proposal while they waited for him to make up his mind. (Not that Addison ever needed an excuse for expensive food.) The alcohol, especially, proved a mental aid. With Alex outside Seattle Grace, the _they _that they were could finally be out in the open. They'd be close enough to meet for lunch. Alex, she had already determined, for his professional growth, would be leading a seminar on genetic disorders in young children. As the sponsor of said series, she would have it held at Grace. And her own consults would bring her by Mercy West occasionally.

"We can surprise each other at work," she said, lowly, "We never get to do that now." The odd cadence of her voice on "surprise"—and his sense that hers had not_ always _been a thoroughly-professional past—gave him dangerous ideas on the benefits of being permitted at-work personal relations. (_On-call rooms, closets, elevators, walls_.) Those thoughts inspired him to ditch dessert and his "professional" skills convinced her to do the same. Hands fumbled under coats and shirts were disarranged before they'd even reached the street to hail a cab. By the time they made it home they'd had to tip their taxi driver a small fortune—for his therapy bills, of course. They'd sent their neighbor, little old Miss Elliot, scurrying back indoors before she'd had a chance to water the last fern. Back in the apartment, they forget themselves, again, and left the blinds wide open. That night dirty Stuart James across the street, with his telescope and his prurient curiosity, started in shock and fell out of his chair right onto the floor.

-----

At three A.M. he kissed her shoulder and tugged her gently on the ear. "Mmph," she mumbled and rolled over, peeved. She hadn't cracked an eye open. He poked her in the ribs; she yelped and bolted upright, years of life-by-pager snapping her straight into all-systems-go. "What the hell?" she demanded with a hint a panic. _Why the f--- had he woken her? _Then, _whose goddamn pager? _She always swore before she'd had caffeine. Her sluggish mind, still half-dreaming, ran through the possibilities. Only seconds passed before her heart was racing and every nerve stood at attention. She was wide awake, now.

"Addison," he murmured, leaning his forehead against hers. He reached up to gently tuck her hair away, and kissed her lightly on her lower lip. He took her right hand, chill and clammy, in his own. She'd ceased to breathe.

"_Okay_," he said, "we're on."

End of Story.

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A/N: Well, there you have it: my plotless ode to self-absorption. If you made it this far (how? And dear god, why?!), I thank you, truly. I hope it was at least somewhat worth your while.

This story was my first attempt at writing fiction since…oh, maybe third grade (and I am embarrassingly old), so thanks _so_ much for sticking it out with me while I tried to re-find my writing voice. It's been a delightful experience for me, and you all made it possible by reading & reviewing.

Good-bye, and much love,

GG


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